EDMONTON – The no. 2 UBC Thunderbirds men's soccer team stormed back from a two-goal halftime deficit to earn a 3-3 tie with the Alberta Golden Bears at Foote Field in Edmonton on Sunday afternoon.
“We were down 3-1 and it was a subpar effort in the first half and at least we responded in the second half and came out strong,” said UBC head coach
Mike Mosher. “The response was good in the second half but it was really a 45-minute performance and that isn't going to get it done in this league, especially on the road.
Senior striker Brett Colvin, who tied Alberta's all-time conference scoring record of 23 goals with the game's opening tally, fired a shot from 30 yards out that eluded the reach of UBC netminder
Luke O'Shea (Richmond, BC) in the seventh minute.
Tyson Keam (Langley, BC), a senior defender responded two minutes later with the T-birds' only shot of the half, a penalty kick to the bottom right corner.
The Bears regained the lead in the 23rd minute, however, when Osmo Bimba, in the middle of the 18-yard box, found the ball in the midst of a scramble and powered it home for his first of the season.
Milan Timotijevic doubled the lead when he shot a one-timer from the hip off a Colvin pass in the 32nd minute and third-year midfielder Kellen Stenger almost made it 4-1 a couple of minutes later when he put a shot off the crossbar.
Alberta finished the first half with nine shots on goal but O'Shea's four saves and the Stenger shot off the bar gave UBC a chance to come back in the second half, which they did almost immediately.
In the 48th minute, Stenger received a pass from his netminder, Jay Vetsch, but his return pass got intercepted by the T-birds' Haley, who went in alone and deked out the Alberta goalie to cut the lead to one.
Only five minutes later, sophomore midfielder
Navid Mashinchi (Port Moody, BC) crossed the ball over the Golden Bears' 18-yard box, teammate
Paul Clerc (Coquitlam, BC) at the side of the Alberta net kept the ball in play with a deft header before Johnson finished the play with his own header of the ball into the back of the net.
The rest of the game found the ball constantly in the Bears' end of the pitch, with
Devin Gunenc (North Vancouver, BC) hitting the crossbar in the 66th minute and
Brandon Bonifacio (Vancouver, BC) hitting the near post a minute to injury time.
UBC's best chance to get ahead came in the 80th minute, however, when a Bonifacio shot saved by Vetsch sprung out to Haley, but the resulting goal was disallowed as he was ruled offside.
O'Shea, seeing his first action with UBC, finished with seven saves in the game while his Alberta counterpart, Vetsch, finished with two.
“I said to our team this is not about tying this game up, I told them I think you can go and still win the game, giving them that confidence that 3-1 down, they could still take this game,” said Mosher.
“There was certainly a few choice words at half time because the level of competitiveness and intensity is not what's expected of this team and it's not going to get us results. We expected more. We made a few changes, from day one to day two to try and get some fresh bodies and those fresh bodies didn't do it for us,” said Mosher.
UBC (2-0-3) returns home to host the Lethbridge Pronghorns and Calgary Dinos next weekend.
The 2-2-2 Alberta Golden Bears host the Saskatchewan Huskies in a two-game set.
- with files from Paul Cartledge (University of Alberta Sports Information)
