VANCOUVER – A chance to win a banner in front of the home crowd for a second straight year. That's what awaits the U SPORTS No.2-ranked UBC Thunderbirds (13-1-0 regular season, 1-0 playoffs) this weekend, as the team enters the Canada West Final Four at Thunderbird Stadium as the top seed.
The T-Birds begin the conference championship tournament with their semi-final against the Saskatchewan Huskies (10-3-1 regular season, 1-0 playoffs) at 4:00 p.m. (PT) on Thursday. After them at 7:00 p.m. (PT) the Trinity Western Spartans (9-2-3 regular season, 1-0 playoffs) take on the Victoria Vikes (8-4-2 regular season, 2-0 playoffs) in the other semi-final. The bronze medal game is on Friday at 4:00 p.m. (PT) and the battle for gold slated for 7:00 p.m. (PT) Friday, all at Thunderbird Stadium.
"It is always a goal to win the division to be in the situation to host at home in these big matches," said UBC head coach and Canada West Coach of the Year
Jesse Symons. "We are really excited to be playing at home and really enjoy competing at Thunderbird Stadium! It is comfortable and a place that our players are very familiar with. We have had a lot of great games here and I don't expect anything different vs Saskatchewan in the semi-final."
UBC is coming off of a historic regular season that saw the team win all but one game and tie their own mark for most regular season points in Canada West history.
Katalin Tolnai's 22 points easily paced the conference and tied the mark of her teammate last year
Danielle Steer for most ever in a single regular season. Everything went to plan in the Canada West quarterfinal, a comfortable 4-0 win against the Regina Cougars.
It's been an ideal year so far for the blue and gold, but for a group of the quality of this T-Birds team, the pressure is now on to secure back-to-back conference championships for the first time since 2015-16.
"We are really trying to be as consistent as possible in our play and really focus on both our attacking precision and defending mindset," noted Symons. "We really have been pushing the tempo to be ready to go in these games. We have a great collective personality right now and I am excited to see the team compete for each other."
The underlying numbers underscore UBC's regular season dominance, as the squad scored more than three goals per game and allowed just over a goal every three games, both easily the best marks in Canada West.
Semi-final opponent Saskatchewan enjoyed a fine regular season of its own, finishing a close second to MacEwan in the Praire division standings while posting top-five marks in the conference in both goals for and goals against.
"The Huskies have had a great season and are very good with the ball," concluded Symons. "They have found ways to score and keep things fairly tight defensively down the stretch. They like to play in possession and move the ball, which should make for a very entertaining game."
Tasty storylines are already in place for the T-Birds' medal round, regardless of which opponent they face. The Vikes were the only team to beat UBC over the course of the regular season, taking a 2-0 victory in Victoria in early October. Another tilt against traditional rival Trinity Western could be even more intriguing, as a gold medal matchup would make it the third consecutive year the two teams have battled for the Canada West crown, and decide who wins best two out of three.
Stream all games from the Final Four live or on demand on
Canada West TV. Find tickets
here.
