VANCOUVER – UBC Thunderbirds (12-0-1) dropped their first points of the season as they were pushed all the way by the visiting Thompson Rivers Wolfpack (6-1-4) in a highly entertaining 1-1 draw at Ken Woods Field on Friday evening.
Sophia Ferreira opened the scoring for UBC with an 8th-minute header from a corner, but the home side were unable to find a second and were punished in a strong second-half performance from TRU that saw Joss Olcen tie things up in the 71st minute with a superb finish for a share of the spoils.
"For me, we scored early then took our foot off the pedal," UBC head coach
Jesse Symons said after the match. "I told them at half time I wanted to see a push and a mindset to really get after it. I thought we did a little, but no finishing boots today unfortunately, and we missed a lot.
"We just couldn't find a second goal to finish them off. Set pieces are a big part of our program as an identity, and unfortunately, we let in at the back post as we were a little bit unorganized. We'll look at that and make sure that this doesn't happen at playoff time."
It was a closely contested first half, with little to separate the two teams in terms of the passages of play.
UBC got the early breakthrough with just eight minutes on the clock when Ferreira stooped to get onto a
Bailey Doerksen corner, and her header took a deflection past Floor Ursem in the TRU goal.
Jayda Thompson and
Sienna Gibson had chances to add to the Thunderbirds' tally as the half hour mark approached, but the Wolfpack's were very solid defensively and proving hard to break down.
TRU were struggling to get much going in attack, despite their possession, but headed into the break just one down and with all to play for.
The Wolfpack came out strong to start the second half but came close to falling two behind from a Doerksen chance in the 52nd minute.
TRU felt they should have had a penalty minutes later when Olcen was brought down in the box, but the referee waved away the Wolfpack appeals.
Doerksen crashed a header off the bar as the hour mark approached, but couldn't get the critical second goal and TRU punished them with 19 minutes remaining when Olcen superbly finished off a Makenna Ford free kick and the teams were all tied up.
Both sides had chances to win it, but with no breakthrough they had to settle for sharing the points.
Having already clinched the number one seed for the Canada West playoffs, UBC wrap up the 2026 regular season with a home game against UNBC Timberwolves at Thunderbird Stadium on Saturday evening. Kickoff is 5:00 p.m. TRU head to Langley for a clash with the Trinity Western Spartans, in a match with huge playoff positioning implications.
