VANCOUVER, B.C. - The UBC comeback kings made it a perfect start to the new Canada West men's soccer season with a come-from-behind 3-1 victory over the visiting Thompson Rivers Wolfpack at Thunderbird Stadium on Saturday evening, but once again they were made to work hard for the victory.
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Minwoo Kang had given the Wolfpack the lead at the half with a well taken goal in the 32nd minute before the Thunderbirds launched a second half comeback for the second night running.
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This time they didn't leave it so late as a
Max Comsia brace and a match-winning header from
Henri Godbout made it six points out of six for the Thunderbirds to kick off the new campaign.
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Two good fighting performances by UBC, but a few kinks to be ironed out by head coach
Mike Mosher for the long, tough season ahead.
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"A little bit of adversity in the first two games, being down 1-0 at half time in each," Mosher mused postgame. "At the end of the day we responded. That wasn't us in the first half. Disappointing, but we are constantly saying that we've got quality, we've got depth and credit to Max [Comsia] land Henri [Godbout], they came in and changed the game."
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That sign of depth is one of the big positives for Mosher to take from both matches so far. Different players have come in and changed the two games, with a very deep looking roster of starters.Â
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"It's as deep as it's been and we've had some really deep teams over the last decade," Mosher added. "It's nice that we've responded to some adversity and we've been able to change the game with the players coming in. It would be a heck of a lot nicer if we could get it right from the start."
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"Yesterday I thought that we weren't actually that bad in the first half, we had chances and so forth, but then today was a disappointing first half and you're going to have some of those. Hopefully not too many, but that was one of them."
Both teams had half chances in the opening minutes, with TRU's Lachlan Will superbly running through the Thunderbirds defence before firing a weak shot in to
Bennett McKay. UBC responded with an
Asvin Chauhan effort that just flew over the bar.
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UBC had the better of the possession, but the better chances were falling to TRU, with Ranjeet Brar firing into the side netting in the 14th minute and Kang bringing a save out of McKay 11 minutes later.
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The breakthrough came in the 32nd minute. Marcus D'Andrea sent a cross in from the left that ran through to Dominica Comita at the back of the box and his dangerous ball across goal was met by Kang, who drilled it home from 10 yards out for his first goal of his U SPORTS career and TRU's first goal of the new season.
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The visitors took their lead into half time but UBC came out revitalized after the restart and took the game to TRU.
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They got their reward in the 51st minute when Godbout sent a cross in that was parried away by Wolfpack keeper Luca Ortu. The rebound fell perfect to Comsia, who fired home the equalizer, and his first ever U SPORTS goal, from the edge of the six yard box.
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And it was another first goal-scorer that put the Thunderbirds ahead in the 69th minute, when Godbout headed home a pin-perfect chip into the area from
Brennen Fuerst.
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With TRU falling out of the game offensively, UBC kept pushing for the killer third. It finally came with nine minutes remaining and was the pick of the bunch.
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Chris Lee quickly took a throw in, playing it long up the field for Comsia. The rookie striker still had a lot of work to do, but cut inside before unleashing a thunderbolt from just inside the corner of the box that beat Ortu all ends up and secured all three points for the T-Birds.
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UBC now have a bye weekend and won't be back in competitive action until the visit of Trinity Western Spartans on Friday, September 6th. TRU will now head back to Kamloops and the Wolfpack will be looking to get their season up and running next Friday when they host the Spartans at Hillside Stadium.
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