QUEBEC CITY – The UBC Thunderbirds will face the Trinity Western Spartans for an all-Canada West consolation final on Saturday after a 4-1 win over the York University Lions Friday afternoon at Université Laval's Stade Telus.
Holding a 2-1 lead at halftime, the 'Birds got second half insurance goals from Katalin Tolnai and Ella Sunde as the Canada West champions exerted their skill and depth on the Lions who end their U SPORTS National Championship tournament 0-2.
"It's who they are, they want to compete, they want to play for each other and you saw that today," said UBC Head Coach Jesse Symons on the character and resilience shown by his squad after Thursday night's heartbreaking quarter-final loss. "It doesn't matter what game it is; playoff game, league game, consolation game, we're going to show our best and we were really good today."
The T-Birds opened scoring in the 20th when Ella Nuttall-Smith hammered the ball from 13 yards out after the ball ping ponged around near the middle of the penalty box after a Tolnai corner.
Less than three minutes later Ava Alexander scored what stood up as the game winner, finishing off a perfect cross feed from Nisa Reehal.
The Lions got one back in the 38th when Nia Fleming-Thompson took a launching feed and sent a low shot from 18 yards into the back of UBC's net. But that would be the only ball to slip past goalkeeper Dakota Beckett who made three saves for her first post-season win with the T-Birds.
Tolnai restored UBC's two-goal lead six minutes into the second half slamming the ball on a no-doubter after a beautiful short pass from Jayda Thompson for her first point as a Thunderbird.
Sunde put the icing on the cake in the 67th heading the ball in after it bounced off York keeper Ava Jones and then the cross bar from a Tolnai free kick.
There was very little doubt from the early stages of the game the T-Birds were intent on extending their tournament to the fifth-place game and there was no let up until the fulltime whistle.
"A lot of young players today and it just shows our depth and our future," said Symons who got plenty of fresh legs into the match. "You can see the quality on the pitch, I thought all of them actually did really well. Taiya (Dennehy) and Jayda coming in as rookies, Dakota is a rookie in goal today, Sunde today was our player of the game but yeah, we had a lot of good performances today."
After the Spartans defeated the Calgary Dinos 2-1 on a winner in stoppage time by Jessica Vance, it sets up a fourth game this season between the cross-town rivals, the most recent meeting just last weekend in the Canada West Final where UBC came out on top.
"We started the season with Trinity, and now we're ending the season with Trinity. Obviously it's a great rivalry, two top programs in Canada West and in the country. We know each other well so hopefully we can relax a bit tomorrow and just have a great game on Sunday morning to end our seasons."
Kickoff for the consolation final is set for 6:00 a.m. PT Sunday at Stade Telus. The game will be streamed live on CBC's YouTube channel.
