VANCOUVER- It may only be two games into the new Canada West women's soccer regular season but both the UBC Thunderbirds and Trinity Western Spartans knew how important this early-season meeting could prove to be come the end of the year playoff picture.
The two lower mainland powerhouses battled it out at Thunderbird Stadium on Sunday afternoon in their only regular season meeting of the year, and it was the home side that came away the victors, with rookie
Bailey Doerksen's first goal as a Thunderbird five minutes into the second half giving UBC the narrow 1-0 win in a closely contested encounter.
The win sees the defending Canada West champions start the new campaign with two victories and two clean sheets, much to the delight of head coach
Jesse Symons.
"It's the perfect start," UBC head coach Symons said after his side's second victory to start the new season. "We got out of the first game and two very different styles between UFV and Trinity. Fortunately, Bailey was able to find a good opportunity.
"I thought in the first half we had one or two where we probably should have been a little bit cleaner with our finishing, but our defence right now has been fantastic. That's a tough team to slow down and not let a lot of chances happen and when they had one or two Dakota [Beckett] came up big, which was great to see."
Unsurprisingly for the two teams with the best defensive records across Canada West last season, neither side gave an inch in a scoreless first half, with clear cut goal scoring opportunities at a premium.
UBC had the better of what chances there were in a tight first half and
Nisa Reehal had the first chance of the match, shooting narrowly past the far post four minutes in.
The closest either side came to breaking the deadlock came in the 18
th minute when
Sophie Damian sent a corner into the near post, which Olivia Kranjcec looked to clear. Somehow the ball ran under her and through to the back post where Mya Bajpai was on hand to clear the danger off the goalline.
Trinity Western's best opportunities came from set piece with Erin Stewart's delivery causing no end of problems in the UBC box and forcing
Dakota Beckett to punch away, first from a corner and then from an inswinging free kick.
Reehal had the last chance of the half, cutting inside to fire a shot off from inside the box, but it was easily dealt with by Hannah Miller.
It only took five minutes of the second half for the stalemate to be broken when
Holly Whelan played the ball forward to Doerksen, who took a touch inside to make room for the shot before unleashing a delightful dipping shot that flew over the head of Spartans goalkeeper Miller and into the net for the opening goal of the game.
Whelan herself had a looping effort that went wide just past the hour mark, before the Spartans came within
Dakota Beckett's fingertips of levelling the match in the 66
th minute when the Thunderbirds keeper touched Sophie Crowther's shot past the post for a corner,
Mansha Sidhu should have tied things up in the 79
th minute when Bryana Buttar cut the ball back to her in front of goal but the rookie pulled her shot wide left.
Vanessa Tome had a great opportunity to seal the deal for UBC when she was played in with three minutes remaining, rounded Miller but put her shot inches past the right post with the goal gaping.
TWU turned up the pressure but UBC held firm defensively to record their second win and their second clean sheet to start the new season. Three big points in the only meeting between the two teams during the regular season, and a victory that could prove to be huge come playoff time.
"With the new schedule and only playing them once this year, this was a big game," Symons agrees. "For the team, and for the young players going in, we had five first and second years on to end the game today, that's something I feel is pretty impressive to show the maturity of our young players now. Then we have our leaders like Kat [Tolnai] and Vanessa [Tome] that kept the ball in the corner for the last five minutes of the game. That was all good to see."
Trinity Western are back in action next Saturday when they host UFV Cascades at Chase Office Field. UBC now have a bye week next weekend and won't be back in Canada West action until Friday September 8, when they travel to Kelowna to take on the UBC Okanagan Heat.
That time off will give Symons to chance to work on the teams goal scoring output. The two victories have only produced two goals, but the Thunderbirds coach has no doubt the goals will start flowing again soon.
"We have a lot of very talented attacking players, so it's going to come," Symons said of his team's lack of goals. "They're just too good to keep off the scoresheet right now. I think this game was a 1-0 game. It was back and forth, it was tight. We put up 22 shots on Friday and only one goal to come from it is something we were well aware of and need to improve on. We'll get opened a bit and hopefully get more of our first touch going and hopefully we'll score more."
