ABBOTSFORD, B.C. – The UBC Thunderbirds earned a 2-0 victory over the host Fraser Valley Cascades Friday evening to commence the 2019 Canada West men's soccer season. The hosts kept the two-time defending league champions at bay for nearly two-thirds of the game, but UBC broke through offensively in the late going to claim the victory.

On the opening night of the Canada West regular season, the Thunderbirds – unanimously voted No. 1 in the CW preseason coaches' poll – got second-half goals from Victory Shumbusho and Logan Chung to pull away from the host Cascades at MRC Sports Complex. Jason Roberts made six saves for the clean sheet.

"We know coming out here, Tom (Lowndes, Cascades head coach) organizes his team really well and gets them ready to go," UBC head coach Mike Mosher said afterward. "It's never an easy game.

"There's a lot of energy in Game 1 (of the season), and sometimes the game takes a little while to settle down. But as the first half went on, we did start to take over and grind them down a little bit, and that was the message going into the second half. We got a series of free kicks, and you sensed it was really coming at that point."
 

The two teams started tentatively, with the Cascades mounting a couple of promising counterattacks, most notably a run from Trevor Zanatta down the right side, but his shot went wide.

The T-Birds gained traction as the half wore on, earning a series of set pieces deep in Cascades territory, but UFV rookie goalkeeper Ethan Duggan stood tall to keep them at bay. On Jordan Haynes's corner, Duggan courageously leaped into traffic to punch the ball away just before UBC's Jackson Farmer could get on the end of it.

At the half, UBC owned a 6-0 edge in corners and a 12-2 edge in shots, but Duggan and the Cascades were level on the scoreboard.

The T-Birds broke through in the 59th minute. Off a throw-in, Duggan came out to claim the ball, but it deflected off his fingertips and into the path of Victory Shumbusho deep in the box, and he bicycle-kicked it into the empty net.

The Cascades surged at that point – Manpal Brar's shot from the top of the box forced UBC keeper Jason Roberts into a tough diving save, and moments later, Mikael Mainella hit the far post to Roberts's right.
 

In his first Canada West league game, Logan Chung made it 2-0 in the 81st. Mackenzie Cole threaded a pass across the box to Chung on the right, and he worked his way past a Cascades defender and fired a shot inside the far post.

The Cascades continued to push, and Brar hammered a shot off the woodwork in the dying minutes.

Both teams are back in action on Sunday – UBC hosting Trinity Western (2 p.m.) in its home opener at Thunderbird Stadium, and UFV visiting the Victoria Vikes (2 p.m.). Both games will be webcast at CanadaWest.tv.