VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds look to continue their impressive play to start the Canada West season when they welcome the Alberta Pandas followed by the defending U SPORTS National Champion MacEwan Griffins for back-to-back home games this Friday and Saturday evening. Both games are scheduled to kick off at 5:00 p.m. PT at Thunderbird Stadium.
The U SPORTS Women's Soccer top ranked T-Birds are soaring out of the gates with a 3-0 record while outscoring opponents 14-0 thus far. UBC's defensive game has been stout in not yet surrendering a goal against and the offensive production has been at times explosive.
With that the blue and gold have boasted the first two Canada West Women's Soccer Players of the Week award recipients for this young season in
Danielle Steer and
Katalin Tolnai while Tolnai also claimed the first U SPORTS Women's Soccer Player of the Week recognition. Tolnai, cemented herself for both Conference and National honours in spectacular fashion by recording a second-half hat trick in a span of just over seven minutes to secure a 4-0 victory over the UVic Vikes last Thursday in front of a sold-out home opening crowd.
Meanwhile fifth-year striker
Danielle Steer earned the honours two weeks ago after an opening weekend that resulted with her name all over the scoresheets, tallying four goals and two assists in 8-0 and 2-0 wins at UFV and TWU. Steer added another marker in the victory over the Vikes and now has five goals and seven total points through three games this season. With that, Steer has cracked the top five list for all-time Canada West goals. She now has 37 in her career, 14 back of record holder and T-Birds alumnae Janine Frazao (51).
"We have some experienced players that have been very successful in CanWest over the years, said UBC head coach
Jesse Symons referencing the squad's superb link play and chance creation. "Danielle (Steer), Katalin (Tolnai) and Nisa (Reehal) have been connecting extremely well at the start of the matches and our game changers coming in are able to continue the tempo with Ava (Alexander), Jade (Taylor-Ryan) and Vanessa (Tome). We have really had a tremendous focus on keeping the ball and hope to continue this over the coming weeks, by attacking in different ways."
The T-Birds open their two-game set against an Alberta Pandas team that comes in with a 1-1 record after splitting their season opening home and home series against MacEwan. The Pandas lost to the host Griffins 3-1 on Friday, August 26 before responding on home turf two-days later with a resounding 5-2 win for the Pandas.
"Alberta has a lot of dynamic attacking players and showed on opening weekend they can score in different ways," added Symons. "We will have to be prepared for this as a team and stay connected defensively well."
The 'Birds will be careful to not overlook the Alberta match on Friday in anticipation for Saturday's test against the defending U SPORTS national champion Griffins (1-1) who in their last meeting delivered a heartbreaking 1-0 overtime loss to UBC last November in the national semi-final in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
"Each year teams are different. No doubt they upset us in the national semi-final last year and credit they were able to go all the way in 2021," commented Symons. "It shows the strength of the Can West conference, that many teams are capable of winning a national championship when at the final Tournament. Points every game are important with the tight pacific division, so these games are important to push for playoff positions. We have a very mature squad that is looking game by game this season and we will be excited to play in front of our home crowds for back-to-back games. It will be good to face Alberta competition in season again with last year being only in BC."
Admission for UBC students is free but you'll need to reserve your tickets.
All ticket details here.
The games will be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
