LANGLEY, B.C. – The UBC Thunderbirds officially clinched first place in the Canada West and home ice throughout the conference playoffs with a 2-1 win over the Trinity Western Spartans Saturday afternoon at the Langley Events Centre.
Grace Elliott scored her third of the weekend and 10
th of the season early in the third period on what stood as the eventual game winner to give UBC their tenth straight victory heading into the final weekend of the regular season.
Fighting to clinch a berth in the Canada West playoffs for the first time, the Spartans weren't able to punch their ticket and with a bye next week, TWU will have to wait to see what their fate has in store, currently three points ahead of the Manitoba Bisons for the sixth and final spot.
"You're playing against a desperate hockey club that plays very aggressive and a lot of pressure and they're coming ready to go at their home barn, it was a challenge today for us to be resilient and really dig in deep and learn how to play in situations like this," said UBC head coach
Graham Thomas on the quick turnaround after Friday's Winter Classic win at home. "Playoff scenarios in the future, we got to learn how to suck it up and play through these things so we were really proud of the group that we found a way. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't our best game but we found a way to get the job done."
The game between the cross-town rivals started with a scoreless first period with TWU outshooting UBC 11-7.
UBC's
Sophia Gaskell opened scoring with her sixth of the season on the power-play at 1:07 of the second period on a point shot through traffic. The Spartans finished the period outshooting the Thunderbirds 10-8, but trailed 1-0 on the scoreboard.
The T-Birds jumped out to a 2-0 lead just 48 seconds into the third on another power-play goal. Elliott deflected a point shot from
Sophia Gaskell past TWU's Kate Fawcett.
The Spartans cut the lead in half when Brooklyn Anderson got her 10th of the season at 13:14. Anderson, who was sitting just outside the blue paint, converted a nice back-handed pass from Chelsea Debusschere past UBC's
Kate Stuart to cut the lead in half with 6:46 remaining. The Spartans pulled Fawcett with 1:55 remaining but were unable to get the equalizer as UBC held on for the 2-1 win.
Stuart finished with 23 saves for her tenth win of the season.
With first place and a first round bye already locked up, the T-Birds close out the regular season in Regina next weekend to face the Cougars before awaiting the conference quarter-finals to see who they'll face in the Canada West semis.
"The Canada West, in my opinion, is one of the strongest conferences in Canada, so to be able to finish in first place in this conference is no easy feat and something we can't take for granted," added Thomas. "Check a box there and we accomplished a goal but this team's very driven and they're very focussed and motivated on a bigger goal so it's just kind of a short term goal that's checked and onto the next thing."
