After a busy start to the Canada West season including a difficult B.C. interior road trip, the No. 6 UBC Thunderbirds (2-1-1) are fresh off their bye week and ready to welcome the Lethbridge Pronghorns (0-3-2) for a rare visit to Vancouver Saturday night at Ken Woods Field.
By kickoff, it will have been nearly two full weeks since the T-Birds were last in action, but the break was welcome given the tough Okanagan weekend. UBC now returns home fresh, re-energized, and hungry to get back towards the top of the Pacific division.
The schedule certainly favours the T-Birds as the Pronghorns head to Point Grey a day after visiting the Trinity Western Spartans. Lethbridge is still in search of their first victory on the season, the only remaining Canada West team with a zero in the win column.
UBC is hoping the combination of home cooking and recent history against the 'Horns will help serve up their third win of the campaign. The 'Birds have suffered just one loss to the Pronghorns in their last ten meetings dating back to the 2009 season.
The two teams haven't met in nearly two years with the 'Birds posting a 2-1 win in Vancouver in October of 2017.
Game time on Saturday is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. PT at Ken Woods Field.
Last Action
UBC earned a single point on their two-game Okanagan road trip two weekends ago, via a 1-1 draw with the Thompson Rivers WolfPack on Saturday, August 31
st. The following afternoon the T-Birds put up nine shots on goal but couldn't find the back of the net, falling 2-0 to UBC Okanagan.
The Pronghorns played to a 1-1 draw with the visiting Saskatchewan Huskies last Friday. Both of Lethbridge's points have come at home having also tied MacEwan in the first week of the season.
Players to Watch
Jordan Haynes (#3, D) – Haynes was responsible for four of UBC's nine shots on target against the Heat as well as five of the 'Birds' 23 total shot attempts. The defender from Ontario earned a pair of assists in UBC's 3-2 home opener win over TWU.
Jason Roberts (#1, GK) – In his final U SPORTS season, veteran goalkeeper
Jason Roberts continues to climb the Canada West record books. With 19 career wins, the Richmond product is creeping towards the top five all-time while his 15.5 shutouts is tied for seventh most in conference history.
Coach's Take
Bye weeks can be positive or negative depending on point of view, but UBC's veteran bench boss believes the early break will be of benefit.
"It comes at an okay time when we had been going pretty heavy since the start of training camp," said UBC head coach
Mike Mosher who will be gunning for a 2-0 start at home for the fourth straight season. "Coming off a disappointing weekend in the Okanagan, it's an opportunity to refocus and look at what we need to improve at."
Conceding 1.25 goals against on average isn't sitting well with the defending Canada West champions who feel they can also improve on offence, specifically by executing more quality chances.
"I think we were quite unfortunate to come away with only one point out of six (on the road trip), but definite learning opportunities," continued Mosher. "Not as many quality scoring chances as we might have hoped from the amount of possession that we had."
