VANCOUVER - The UBC Thunderbirds (1-2-0) earned their first victory of the Canada West season with a commanding 63-0 win over the University of Alberta Pandas (0-4-0) on a rainy Sunday at the Gerald McGavin Rugby Centre. The T-Birds stormed out to a 27-0 lead at halftime and although the rain let up, UBC did not. The 'Birds continued to play with pace and put up another 36 points in the second half en route to a decisive victory.
UBC head coach Dean Murten knew it would be a battle against both the elements and a Panda squad who were also eager to notch their first win of the season.
"The girls worked really hard in terrible conditions, so to be able to do that in front of such a great crowd is a really good day for us," said Murten, as a number of UBC rugby alumni braved the soaking conditions to cheer on the 'Birds. "It's just one of those things...you have to adapt to it and we did adapted quite well. We've lost two games, but we knew we had a really good performance in us. We never got down on ourselves and just stuck to what we knew was working. We said it would click one day, and today it clicked."
Early in the second half, a scary head-to-head collision between UBC's Emma Feldinger and Alberta's Jody Siemens forced both players to leave the game and receive stitches. Despite the downpour, the T-Birds recorded an impressive 11 tries and Shoshanah Seumanutafa tallied four converts. Eight different T-Birds scored, including Beau Schellekens, Emily Baker, Emma Feldinger, Rachel Smith, Madison Gold, and Nicole Simoneau. Hunter Czeppel and Seumanutafa each had a pair of tries in the victory.
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Next up for the Thunderbirds is a matchup with the Lethbridge Pronghorns (1-1-0) on Sunday, September 29 at 1:00 p.m. PT as UBC looks to build momentum down the stretch.
Alberta will be in tough next Sunday afternoon when they host the defending Canada West champion Calgary Dinos (3-1-0) in search of their first victory.
ALBÂ Â 0-0 -- 0
UBCÂ Â 27-36 -- 63
SCORING SUMMARY
First half
5' – UBC TRY – Shoshanah Seumanutafa (Shoshanah Seumanutafa convert) – UBC 7-0
7' – UBC TRY – Hunter Czeppel (convert missed) – UBC 12-0
13' – UBC TRY – Beau Schellekens (convert missed) – UBC 17-0
28' – UBC TRY – Emily Baker (convert missed) – UBC 22-0
38' – UBC TRY – Emma Feldinger (convert missed) – UBC 27-0
Second half
44' – UBC TRY – Shoshanah Seumanutafa (convert missed) – UBC 32-0
53' – UBC TRY – Rachel Smith (convert missed) – UBC 37-0
60' – UBC TRY – Hunter Czeppel (Shoshanah Seumanutafa convert) – UBC 44-0
67' – UBC TRY – Madison Gold (Shoshanah Seumanutafa convert) – UBC 51-0
71' – UBC TRY – Beau Schellekens (convert missed) – UBC 56-0
78' – UBC TRY – Nicole Simoneau (Shoshanah Seumanutafa convert) – UBC 63-0
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