VANCOUVER – It feels a little strange to say just a month into the 2025 campaign, and another month still before it's all over, but this weekend marks the final Canada West home game for the Thunderbirds this season.
The 2-1 T-Birds will square off against the 1-1-1 Lethbridge Pronghorns on Saturday, September 27th, with the opportunity to virtually lock up a top two seed in the Canada West standings ahead of a rematch with the Victoria Vikes on the final day of the regular season.
"I am hoping to see less penalties given away, our discipline needs to be better," states T-Birds head coach
Dean Murten. "I am hoping our defence is a little more dominant than it was in the last game."
That last outing was an 82-19 win over the visiting Alberta Pandas, a match that featured four tries each from
Adia Pye (previous Canada West Player of the Week) and
Charity Williams (the current Canada West Player of the Week).
Those two wingers are a dynamic force for the UBC attack, which has been able to gel more as the regular season has gone along.
"Against Alberta I saw a bit more team cohesion," said Murten. "We scored three good team tries at the start of the game that showed we're able to keep the ball for more phases. This tells me we're going on the right direction."
This Saturday is the last time that the Thunderbirds will play at home until the upcoming 2025 CGIS U SPORTS Women's Rugby Championship, which runs from October 29th to November 2nd.
Lethbridge, for their part, are looking to continue to establish themselves as the top team in the prairies. After a 4-2 record and third-place regular season finish last year, the Pronghorns sit third place again currently this season and are searching for their first win over the T-Birds since the 2017 Canada West third place match.
This next bout in the series between these two teams begins at 1:00 p.m. (PT) at the Gerald McGavin UBC Rugby Centre.
