Following another undefeated regular season, the T-Birds enter the conference playoffs with a clear goal: become the first team to win three straight Canada West women's soccer titles since the Alberta Pandas did so in the late 90s.
That's a high standard to try and achieve, but this iteration of the Thunderbirds has already achieved quite a bit, and have the opportunity to start the postseason fresh following a bye in the final week of the regular season.
"We've got everyone healthy – everyone is available and that puts us in a good spot," said UBC head coach Jesse Symons. "Knowing that we're playing MacEwan, they're obviously a great program, well-structured and well put together. They had a good last weekend, and they're probably motivated from that, so I'm excited to see a really good game on Saturday.
"It's been really good to stay at home. We had a few busy weeks of travel before our last home weekend, so having three weeks here has been really good for the players, from a getting healthy perspective, school perspective and training perspective…we're excited to host this week and it'll hopefully be a bit of a curtain call towards nationals in a few weeks."
Should the T-Birds advance to the Canada West Final Four they'll almost certainly have to play it on the road (unless every Prairie Division team loses their first round matchup), which gives another reason for the blue and gold to savour the opportunity to play their quarterfinal within the friendly confines of Thunderbird Stadium.
Their opponents on Saturday are the 8-4-2 MacEwan Griffins, who earned one of the biggest wins of any Canada West team this season last Saturday when they took down the previously-undefeated Calgary Dinos, before then falling to Mount Royal on the final day of the regular season to finish as the fourth seed in the Prairie Division.
The Griffins are led offensively by Lillie Pearson, who is tied for third in Canada West in goals this season with eight. As a team they rank sixth in the conference in goals scored (23), and eighth in goals conceded (14).
"We don't see the teams in the prairies very often, the last time we faced this team was back in 2023," remarked Symons. "So there are players in their team who have never stepped into Thunderbird Stadium, so it'll be a good test for us to try and jump on them and find ways to attack them on our field here. Hopefully we'll be ready for the test."
The T-Birds of course boast plenty of firepower, with 45 goals scored and just two conceded this year, both tops in the conference. Maddy Norman etched her name into the record book with 22 goal contributions (14 goals, eight assists), which tied the Canada West record for a single season. Jayda Thompson and Bailey Doerksen both also ranked in the top five in the conference in assists this year, and 16 different T-Birds recorded at least one goal contribution in all.
Saturday marks just the 10th meeting all-time between UBC and MacEwan, with the Thunderbirds boasting a 7-1-1 record in the series. The lone loss came in the semifinals of the 2021 national championship tournament, which the Griffins followed up with a win in the final for their first U SPORTS title.
Normally, the battle to make it to nationals is a large subplot in the battle for conference supremacy. But for the T-Birds, at least, that's not an issue this year as they are set to host the tournament at Thunderbird Stadium from November 12th to 15th.
That doesn't take away from the stakes of this weekend's quarterfinal, however, with the Thunderbirds just as determined as ever to make it to the Final Four and back to the conference championship game.
"We want the best seeding possible at nationals, and to do that you've got to win the Canada West Championship," stated Symons. "There's a lot of schools that are going to fight for it over the next couple weeks, some very good programs, so I'm excited to put our best foot forward on Saturday and hopefully we're on the right side of that match to make it to the Final Four.
"Knowing that we're at nationals is obviously a way to put our shoulders down a little bit and be a little more relaxed, but at the same time we're a team that wants to get results and wants banners."
The Thunderbirds and Griffins face off at noon on Saturday, October 31, inside Thunderbird Stadium. You can get tickets for the game
HERE, or watch it live on
Canada West TV.
