VANCOUVER – UBC Thunderbirds midfielder Thomas Gardner has been honoured with the 2018 Lou Bilek Award as the U SPORTS men's soccer Rookie of the Year.

The North Vancouver native and product of the Vancouver Whitecaps residency program was also named to the U SPORTS All-Rookie team as well as a First Team All-Canadian while third-year defender Connor Guilherme has been named a Second Team All-Canadian.

Finishing the 2018 regular season with six goals and eight points, Gardner became the first player in Canada West history to be named both the conference Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year in the same season. The first-year Arts student is the first Thunderbird to win the Lou Bilek Award since Chris Serban accomplished the feat in 2014.

"It means a lot, but as cliché as it sounds it really is a team effort," said a humble Gardner following the awards ceremony. "All the boys are a part of this."

Three of Gardner's six goals stood up as game winners while five were scored off set pieces as the young midfielder has proven to be a deadly threat with perfectly placed strikes.

Guilherme has been named an All-Canadian for the first time. The third-year defender from Unionville, Ontario had a tremendously solid season in the UBC backfield appearing in all 15 regular season games, starting in 14 of them, more than any other Thunderbird. Guilherme also added two goals in the Canada West season and scored another in last weekend's gold medal match to help secure the T-Birds' record 19th conference title.

Gardner, Guilherme and the Thunderbirds open up the 2018 U SPORTS national championship on their own pitch when they host the Carleton Ravens Thursday night.

"I'm super excited, we all are, we've been preparing the whole year for this, this is the end goal," added Gardner. "It's going to be really special, the home crowd always helps and all their support behind the scenes has been so instrumental."

Kick off Thursday against Carleton is 6:30 p.m. PT at Thunderbird Stadium.