VANCOUVER, B.C. – UBC Thunderbirds women's soccer team (9-0-0) remained perfect on the season with a commanding 3-0 victory over the visiting Mount Royal Cougars (2-6-2) on Friday evening.
It was a tight first half, with
Sienna Gibson's second minute opener the only difference between the two sides at the break. The woodwork, offside calls, and some good goalkeeping from Ella Filek denied UBC in the second half before a
Jade Taylor-Ryan double secured another victory for the defending U SPORTS champions.
"It was pretty comfortable today," UBC head coach
Jesse Symons felt about the match. "They set up pretty low and tired to transition on us. I felt we found good spaces and we should have scored a lot more than three today, but hopefully they come for us later on in the season. But we're getting in the right spaces."
UBC came out quick and Gibson fired them into the lead two minutes in, finishing off a nice pass inside from
Bailey Doerksen.
The Thunderbirds dominated the first half play, with the Cougars struggling to get anything going offensively in the final third.
An
Ella Sunde shot, which was well held by Filek in the MRU goal, and a 28th minute shot from
Jayda Thompson that crashed off the bar were the closest that UBC came to adding to their tally in the first half after some solid Cougars defending.
UBC threw everything at Mount Royal in the second half. Filek denied Taylor-Ryan before
Jacqueline Tyrer headed a corner narrowly wide.
Sophia Ferreira had the ball in the net in the 64th minute from a long Tyrer free-kick into the box, but the flag was up quickly for offside.
Ferreira then saw a cross-come-shot tipped onto the bar by Filek, who then somehow denied Doerksen from the rebound.
Taylor-Ryan finally added a second for UBC in the 74th minute, with a superb looping header off an
Olivia Gomez cross, and the 4th year forward grabbed a second seven minutes later after Filek spilled a
Jayda Thompson cross and the she was on hand to fire home a third.
Filek denied Taylor-Ryan a hat-trick on numerous occasions in the closing minutes and UBC had to settle for the 3-0 victory, taking their unbeaten record to 9-0-0 for the season.
UBC are back in action on Sunday afternoon when the visiting Victoria Vikes come to Thunderbird Stadium. Mount Royal head north to Prince George on Sunday to take on the UNBC Timberwolves. Both matches kick off at 1:00 p.m. (PT).
