VANCOUVER – With all 2025 varsity events complete, the UBC Thunderbirds finish the year with another great record of success.
The T-Birds totaled nine national championships and eight conference banners this calendar year, bringing plenty of trophies home to Vancouver. In addition, 10 Thunderbirds heard their names called in professional sports league drafts, and some recent alumni made an impact at a high level.
UBC's first national titles of 2025 came as a pair, when the Men's and Women's Swimming teams crushed the competition at the U SPORTS National Championships in Toronto back in March. Not only did the T-Birds claim both banners, but they also broke the U SPORTS record in 10 different events in the process.
That dominance carried over into the first half of the 2025-26 season, as the T-Birds travelled to Lethbridge at the end of November and won another double at the Canada West Championships.
In between, current and former UBC swimmers made some waves on the international stage, as
Emma O'Croinin served as one of the Team Canada flag bearers at the 2025 FISU Summer World University Games, while
Blake Tierney,
Finlay Knox and Ingrid Wilm competed at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, with Wilm earning a bronze medal in the 4x100m Mixed Medley.
The only sport that claimed more hardware than swimming in 2025 was golf, as the UBC squads won six titles between them. Women's Golf accounted for four of those, winning two national championships (NAIA and Golf Canada) and two conference championships (Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) and Canada West).
The T-Birds' Men's Golf team won at both the Golf Canada and CCC Championships, continuing UBC's remarkable streak of winning every CCC title that they've competed for (on both the men's and women's sides) since joining the conference ahead of the 2018-19 season.
Individually,
Grace Bell and
Sienna Harder also etched their names in the history books with wins at NCAA Division I events – becoming just the fourth and fifth T-Bird golfers to ever do so, and first since the 1990s.
Bell did so in February at the Wigwam Preview in Arizona, the top highlight of her fourth and final year as a Thunderbird. Harder, meanwhile, began her second year with a win at Seattle's Pat Lesser Harbottle Invitational in September.
Another sport that was in the limelight this year was rugby, beginning in March when the T-Birds claimed their third straight Canada West Women's Rugby Sevens Championship. The blue and gold sported a perfect 15-0 record across three tournaments, winning all but two of their matches by double digits.
The Thunderbirds made their mark on the international stage in August and September when five T-Birds – current athletes
Rachel Smith and
Florence Symonds, and alumnae Gillian Boag, Mikiela Nelson and Shoshanah Seumanutafa – travelled to England to represent Canada at the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup.
At the tournament, Canada enjoyed an incredible run that included a monumental win over New Zealand in the semifinals, becoming only the third team to ever defeat the Black Ferns in a World Cup match. In the final, Canada faced hosts England – featuring another UBC alumna in Mackenzie Carson – and fell 33-13 to take the silver medal.
Just a month after that tournament ended, UBC hosted the 2025 CGIS U SPORTS Women's Rugby Championship, entering as the sixth seed and facing a gauntlet of a path with three undefeated teams – Laval, Queen's and Victoria – standing in their way.
The Thunderbirds more than rose to the occasion, as they embarked on a run for the ages with a 32-10 win over Laval, followed by a last-second goal line defensive stand to claim a 20-14 victory over Queen's, before finally prevailing 15-13 over UVic in the championship final thanks to an
Adia Pye try on the final play of the match.
That victory capped off a phenomenal few days not just for rugby, but for UBC as a whole, as the T-Birds won three championships within 48 hours over the Halloween weekend. First, the T-Birds Women's Soccer team won their second straight Canada West title, continuing their record-breaking winning streak with a 2-0 victory over rivals Trinity Western.
While they eventually fell 2-1 to Montreal in a snow-covered U SPORTS National Championship Final the following weekend, it was not before the Thunderbirds had compiled an astounding 42 wins in a row, stretching over two full calendar years.
Jumping back to that fateful Halloween weekend, in between the soccer and rugby titles came a triumph for Men's Rowing at the Canadian University Rowing Championships. It's the fourth straight national title for the T-Birds, and the ninth overall since 2014.
UBC finished on the podium in five of the six events, including gold medals in the Men's Eight (8+) and Men's Pair (2–). They finished with 112 points in the team standings, beating out Brock (100) for the title.
The high-flying UBC Track & Field squads round out the list of 2025 banner winners. First, the women's team took gold at the CCC Championships in May, dominating the field in Ashland, Oregon. The T-Birds earned 239 team points at the event, well ahead of second-place finishers College of Idaho (161).
Then, UBC won both the men's and women's national titles at the NAIA Championships, the second time in program history that they've won both in the same year. It's the fourth straight national championship win for the women's team, while the men reached the mountaintop for the first time since 2019 (the only previous occasion when the Thunderbirds won both titles).
In addition to the all of the championships won, UBC also boasts 10 players selected in professional sports league drafts in 2025. That tally began in early April, when Nikola Guzina was picked by the Vancouver Bandits in the first round (10th overall) of the CEBL draft.
Later that month, five athletes heard their names called in the CFL draft –
Arvin Hosseini (third round, 21st overall),
Skyler Griffith (third round, 22nd overall),
Isaiah Knight (third round, 24th overall),
Gavin Coakes (fourth round, 29th overall) and
Ronan Horrall (sixth round, 48th overall). UBC tied for the second-most draft picks of any U SPORTS program this year, and were level with Alberta for the most of any team in Canada West.
In the summer, Chanreet Bassi became the first Thunderbird ever selected in the PWHL draft, taken in the sixth round (48th overall) by the Vancouver Goldeneyes. Ryan Heppner was then selected by the Atlanta Braves (19th round, 577th overall) in the MLB draft, with the third-year pitcher becoming the 28th Thunderbird drafted by a major league team since 2001 and following in the footsteps of his brother Sean Heppner, drafted by the Cleveland Guardians the year before.
Finally, the T-Birds continued to be regular contributors at the CPL draft, with Nicolas Nadeau selected by Vancouver FC (second round, 10th overall) and Luke Norman taken right after by Pacific FC (second round, 11th overall). The Thunderbirds have now recorded 15 draft picks in the eight years that the CPL draft has been held.
A couple of recent UBC Football alumni have also made their mark in the NFL ranks in 2025. Giovanni Manu – who made history last year as the first T-Bird ever taken in the NFL draft – and former teammate Theo Benedet both made the 53-man roster for the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears, respectively, and became the fourth and fifth Thunderbirds to see regular season NFL action.
Not only that, but they also became the first two T-Birds to start an NFL game. Benedet earned that distinction on September 28 in a game against the Las Vegas Raiders, beginning a run of seven starts in a row. Manu, meanwhile, made his first start in his fourth career game against the Cincinnati Bengals on October 5. Unfortunately, he then suffered a knee injury ahead of the Lions' next game and was placed on injured reserve.
While UBC student-athletes and staff will enjoy some time off over the holidays, they'll then aim to keep momentum going in the new year. Action gets underway on the weekend of January 9 and 10, with plenty of games to enjoy including Men's and Women's Basketball hosting Trinity Western and Men's Hockey at home against Mount Royal.
Incredibly, of the eight U SPORTS teams currently in the middle of their seasons, five of them – Men's and Women's Hockey, Men's and Women's Swimming, and Men's Volleyball – sit at No. 1 in the national rankings. The other three are all nationally-ranked as well, with Women's Volleyball at No. 3, Men's Basketball at No. 6, and Women's Basketball at No. 10.
As well, UBC Baseball clocks in at No. 10 in the NAIA Baseball Coaches' Top 25 preseason poll, while the T-Birds received votes in the NAIA Softball Coaches' Top 25 preseason poll.
