EDMONTON — Third-year forward
Sebastian Dzikowski continued his torrid scoring pace, registering a hat trick to lead the UBC Thunderbirds to a convincing 6-0 victory over the MacEwan Griffins Saturday afternoon at Clarke Stadium. With the win the No.1 ranked T-Birds improved to 6-0-1 on the Canada West season
Dzikowski made his presence felt early and often in recording his three goals in the first 38 minutes of the match.
Dzikowski leads the Canada West conference with 12 goals, and is just two away from tying the UBC men's soccer program record of 14 goals in a single season set by Craig Chaisson in 1994.
Luke Norman,
Eric Lajeunesse and
Connor Mrazek also hit the back of the net for UBC.
Bennett McKay made two saves in victory for the 'Birds, while Marco Ilich made six saves in the loss for MacEwan, who dropped to 2-3 this season.
"It was a very business like performance," said UBC head coach
Mike Mosher. "We didn't start all that well, but we didn't panic and eventually worked our way into it."
The Griffins got off to a solid start in the opening 10 minutes of the match. They had some big scoring opportunities, but were unable to grab the early lead.
Dzikowski opened the scoring in the 13th minute, netting his tenth of the season after taking a nice feed from Norman and made a perfect strike in the box past Ilich to give UBC a 1-0 lead.
After Norman made it 2-0 for the T-Birds, Dzikowski broke in behind the Griffins defence and made no mistake to give UBC a 3-0 lead in minute 18.
Before the half was out, he completed the hat-trick in the 38th minute with a nifty deflection off a pass from
Bradley Richardson.
"Pretty much on our first quality chance we scored and then punished them again two to three minutes later - that's what good teams do," Mosher added. "You weather some of the rocky moments and then take opportunities and be clinical when they come. Those goals change games."
The T-Birds continue their Alberta road swing and will go in search of a seventh victory on the season with an early Sunday afternoon meeting against the Lethbridge Pronghorns and a 1:15 p.m. PT kickoff.
