VANCOUVER - Marcus Johnstone scored a last minute goal to help his Alberta Golden Bears to a 1-0 upset of the No. 5 UBC Thunderbirds men's soccer team in the Canada West championship game on Sunday at Victoria's Centennial Stadium.
“It's a devastating way to lose," said UBC head coach
Mike Mosher. "A 90th minute goal in the final in a game where I thought we were in control. We were hoping it was just a matter of time when we would find something so everyone's pretty devastated at this point in time."
The loss ends the season for UBC, the 2010 national finalist. The 2010 national champion York Lions were also eliminated this weekend in a 4-1 loss to the Toronto Varsity Blues in the OUA semifinal Saturday.
BOX SCORE
Johnstone's blast from 10 feet out eluded UBC's freshman goalkeeper
Luke O'Shea for the game-winning goal.
UBC thought they had scored at the 62nd minute of play, with the referee seemingly allowing advantage. But just as Alberta was committing an own-goal, the official blew his whistle and instead awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box after a late Golden Bears' tackle.
The Thunderbirds could not capitalize on the chance and the game remained scoreless until the final minute of play.
"We were just waiting for an opportunity," said Mosher. "In the second half, I thought we had the majority of the ball and there weren't a lot of scoring opportunities, there wasn't a lot of pressure from them so to be honest, I thought even if we went into overtime, that was fine. That was going to be good for us, even though we had played overtime the day before because we were tiring them out."
Three players dressed for UBC for the final time in this match.
"It's disappointing to have the quality of the team we have, it's disappointing to have three very good players, fifth-year guys, who aren't going to get another crack at a national championship in
Matt Allard,
Tyson Keam and
Jason Gill," said Mosher. "That's the nature of sport. Unfortunately, sometimes it can be very cruel."
UBC advanced to the conference final after a win over Trinity Western in Saturday's semifinal that needed penalty kicks to determine a winner. The Golden Bears upset the No. 3 nationally ranked UVic Vikes with a 2-1 win in the other semifinal on Saturday.
The Thunderbirds' 2011 campaign ends after seven wins, a loss and six ties in the regular season to go with a win and a loss in the playoffs.
- with files from Andy Watson (Victoria Sports Information Director)
