VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds continued their perfect start to the season at Thunderbird Stadium Friday evening with a 2-0 victory over the visiting University of Fraser Valley Cascades. In an entertaining match-up that could have produced more goals, the evening saw some tremendous goalkeeping for the Cascades' Jackson Cowx to keep his side in the game.
A
Sebastian Dzikowski double made it five wins out of five to start the season for the defending champions, and took the striker's league leading tally to eight, a start that even head coach
Mike Mosher has been a little surprised by with the amount of key players that have moved on from his side.
"Coming in, did we think we'd be 5 and 0?, We'd hoped," was Mosher's honest summation after his side's latest victory. "But it's been good. I would be lying if I was to say that I was a little bit surprised, with the turnover of players and the new bodies coming in. But the new guys that have come in, guys like
Luke Norman,
Eric White, Brennan Fuerst, have been terrific.
"They've started every game, pretty much 90 minutes a game. Them, combined with the others, and then Seb [Dzikowski] coming in and doing what he's done, we couldn't have dreamed for a better start."
UBC dominated play in the first half, racking up 15 shots, seven on them on target. They only had one goal to show for their efforts, however, denied by some fantastic saves from Cascades goalkeeper Cowx.
After a couple of half chances, the Thunderbirds went ahead in the 22nd minute when Dzikowski fired home from the spot after the referee called a handball on Gurnaj Sidhu in the box as a corner came in.
UBC kept the pressure on with
Tomas Pena and
Markus Kaiser having shots that didn't miss by much just past the half hour mark.
Dzikowski was proving a constant thorn in the Cascades' side and a real handful for the UFV backline to deal with. Canada West's leading scorer had three great chances to add to his tally in the closing minutes of the half, heading narrowly over in the 40th minute before Cowx denied him with two fantastic acrobatic saves.
Despite failing to register a shot in the first half, UFV had a great opportunity to go into the break level when Manpal Brar slipped the ball inside to Mateo Brazinha, but the ball was just behind the midfielder and the change went abegging.
UFV came out revitalized after the restart and had the better of the early second half play without really testing
Bennett McKay in the UBC goal.
Dzikowski nearly grabbed a second for the home side just past the hour mark, doing well to win the ball from a Pena cutback before firing over from eight yards out.
The action flowed from end to end without too many clear cut chances, but UFV had a great opportunity to level six minutes from time when Jeevan Dhaliwal was played in but went for goal when a pass inside was perhaps the better option and the break came to nothing.
UBC turned the pressure up in stoppage time and Cowx produced another fantastic save to turn away a brilliantly hit curler from
Asvin Chauhan.
As the Cascades pushed for the late leveller, they were caught on a quick Thunderbirds break as Chauhan tore forward once again, playing the ball inside to
Connor Mrazek, who nudged it on to Dzikowski, sealing the deal for UBC when he powerfully fired home through the legs of Cowx.
There was still time for Kadir Yagci to almost pull one back for UFV, but he fired into the side netting and UBC continued their perfect start to the season.
"You take what you get," Mosher mused after the match. "We expected them to come in, sit a little bit lower, and defend, so it was hard and we didn't get the second one till late. But I'll tell you what, their goalkeeper made some really good saves, so full credit to him. On the day he's made a couple of real worldy saves."
UBC now host the Trinity Western Spartans at Thunderbird Stadium on Saturday evening in what will be a battle between two still undefeated rivals. Kickoff is set for 7:00 p.m.
Tickets are available online and the game will be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
