VANCOUVER. – Perfection awaits. The UBC Thunderbirds women's soccer team moved to within one game of making history on Friday evening at Ken Woods Field after a 4-0 victory over the University of Victoria Vikes.

First half goals from Jayda Thompson, Maddy Norman, and a Sienna Gibson penalty set UBC on their way. Gibson then added her second midway through the second half to round off the scoring.

A 13th straight victory and a 13th straight clean sheet saw the Thunderbirds not only on the brink of recording back-to-back unbeaten and perfect Canada West regular seasons, but following up last year's triumph by going even one better and not even conceding a goal.



"Our start was fantastic tonight," UBC head coach Jesse Symons said after the match. "I thought that Jayda [Thompson] was absolutely electric for her minutes – created goals and was an absolute handful for them. I was so impressed for her to start.

"Just the overall mindset from the beginning was really good for the team, which is what you need against a good program like this. Once Sienna [Gibson] got the PK and finished that off, it was our game and then it was just about managing them. They found ways to attack us, but I felt we did a very good job and we'll need to do that tomorrow too."



It was an entertaining first half, where the scoreboard maybe didn't fairly reflect the chance count, with UVic having a couple of close calls that almost saw them find a way past Dakota Beckett in the UBC goal.

At the other end, her Vikes counterpart Stefanie Mocnik produced a string of saves to keep the scoreline down, but there was little she could do on the three Thunderbirds first half goals.

Thompson opened the scoring eight minutes in when she was slipped in by Ava Alexander, showing great footwork in the box to round the on-rushing Mocnik and tuck the ball away.



UBC doubled their lead three minutes later when Holly Whelan's in-swinging corner was headed onto the bar, coming off Norman and in.

Thompson's pace caused problems once again when she was played in on goal but was brought down by Vikes captain Sophie Murphy. Gibson stepped up and clinically fired home from the spot.

The Thunderbirds didn't take their foot off the gas to start the second half and Gibson crashed one off the bar three minutes after the restart.

UBC made it four in the 66th minute and it was a replica of the opener, this time though it was Sophia Abiera threading the ball through to Gibson, who superbly rounded Mocnik and tucked away her second.



The T-Birds shutout streak was almost broken in the 81st minute with a fantastic 20-yard dipping effort from Ruby Nicholas crashing off the UBC bar.

The two teams meet again on Saturday evening at Thunderbirds Stadium in what is always an emotional Seniors Night and possibly a very historic one. Kick off is 5pm.