VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds have advanced to the Canada West Final Four with a 2-1 win over the Calgary Dinos Saturday afternoon at Thunderbird Stadium.
After conceding the game opening goal in the 59th minute, the T-Birds quickly rallied, scoring twice in the next 14 minutes to extend their season while simultaneously ending the Dinos' campaign.
"It's not a surprise to anybody, it's been an up and down season and there's just another thing thrown at us," said UBC Head Coach Mike Mosher fresh off his 34th Canada West playoff victory. "What was big was we got the 1-1 goal relatively quickly. Thank goodness we got it when we did because the longer it went it would have made it tougher and tougher but the fact we got level again quickly was huge. It's about time we finally found a dirty goal ourselves, a ball bouncing around in the penalty area."
After a scoreless opening half that saw the visitors press late, the T-Birds came storming out of the gate to open up the final 45.
However, it was the Dinos who struck first against the flow of play when Derek Brust headed a Gareth Smith-Doyle ball in, perfectly over UBC keeper Bennett McKay from the edge of the six-yard area.
Despite the blow, UBC was persistent and the defending Canada West champions responded just three minutes later when Jackson Farmer kicked in the tying goal. Mitch Piraux took a corner that was headed by Riley Pang, deflecting the ball off a Dinos defender which then ping ponged around before Farmer ended the flurry with his left foot.
Continuing to press, the 'Birds took their first lead of the game in the 73
rd when
Logan Chung made a lovely strike from the top of the 18-yard box, playing the ball off the post and in.
UBC continued to look for insurance while also keeping Calgary in check, and the 'Birds appeared to have their opportunity in the 88th when Tristan Nkoghe was hauled down in the box. But when the veteran stepped up to take the penalty, his low shot was denied by Calgary keeper Jake Ruschkowski on one of his five saves of the game.
The stop gave the Dinos some added late energy, but time was not on their side as the T-Birds held on to advance to the conference final four tournament next weekend in Calgary.
"We're now at that stage, whatever happens though the regular season it's now done, this is a new season," said Mosher of the team's mindset going forward. "Regardless of whether we played to our abilities and done as we'd hoped to do from the start of the season, we still had to win two games to get ourselves into the conference final and into the national tournament and that was never going to change. So, there's step one out of the way and now we have to go tackle step two next weekend."
That next step will see the 'Birds head to Calgary to face the host Mount Royal Cougars in a semifinal matchup with the winner advancing to the conference championship game while also earning a berth at the upcoming U SPORTS national tournament.
The date and time of the semifinal remains TBD.
