MONTREAL – The UBC Thunderbirds have advanced to Saturday's fifth-place final at the U SPORTS national championship after a dominant 2-0 performance over the St. FX X-Men Friday morning at Université de Montreal's CEPSUM stadium.
Jordan Haynes set up
Nick Fussell for a header goal in the 15
th minute and then scored one of his own late in the second half as the 'Birds put a total of nine shots on goal while the X-Men tested UBC keeper
Andrew Metcalfe just once.
"Nobody wants to be in this game," said UBC head coach
Mike Mosher, referencing the consequences of Thursday's quarter-final loss. "I'm really proud of the guys for a good performance. We're all players and coaches and if we have to go and play, let's play well, perform well and get a result and I'm happy for the boys that we did that because I thought it was a pretty decent performance given adverse circumstances."
After Thursday's 1-0 loss to Université du Quebec à Trois-Rivières, UBC came out a determined bunch and held the pace of play the entire 90 minutes.
The 'Birds' solid start paid off with an early lead when Fussell converted the header for his first goal, and UBC's first, of the tournament. Given the way the T-Birds dominated possession, the X-Men were lucky to be down just a single goal at the half.
UBC's possession time was even greater in the final 45 minutes. Nine of the T-Birds' 16 total shot attempts came in the second half while St. FX didn't manage even one.
Despite this, the game remained 1-0 until the 88
th when Haynes took a shot from 19 yards out that grazed off St. FX keeper William Venoit's hand and into the back of the net to secure the T-Birds' victory.
"It's tough to rally from losing yesterday and being out of the tournament but we have a lot of experienced guys on the team and we want to have one final salute," said Haynes who was proud of his team's response against the X-Men. "Every game you play you play to win so we came out and did what we set out to do."
The quick turnaround, and the prospect of playing three times in three days, had the 'Birds field a different looking starting eleven. The move paid dividends as midfielder
Mihai Hodut provided some good energy, firing a game-high three shots on target. Rookie
Logan Chung was also very strong on the attack and tested Venoit twice.
UBC will now face the York Lions in Saturday's fifth-place game after they defeated the Calgary Dinos 3-2 in Friday's other consolation semi. Kickoff is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. PT at CEPSUM stadium.
