VICTORIA, B.C. – The UBC Thunderbirds got rewarded for their patience with three second half goals, two of them from
Oliver Herbert, securing a 3-0 victory over the Guelph Grphyons in U SPORTS quarter-final action Thursday afternoon at Victoria's Centennial Stadium.
The win, secured with a
Sebastian Agerskov tally in the 86
th along with a staunch defensive performance where the Gryphons were held without a shot on target, punched UBC's ticket into Friday's National Championship semifinals.
It's the fourth time in the last five years the T-Birds have got through their opening game at nationals as the Canada West Champions will now face the host Victoria Vikes who advanced 1-0 past McGill in extra time.
"I knew Guelph would be well organized and well-prepared for us," said UBC head coach,
Mike Mosher. "They defend well and we had to find our rhythm which I thought we did towards the latter half of the first half – we started to find it, we started to connect passes, asking questions of them, a lot of free kicks and corners and we could see the game was starting to tilt at that point.
"We've been there many times before, where you grind teams down and eventually our quality will come out and that was certainly the case today."
A scoreless draw through 45 minutes of play, the second half saw the T-Birds pick up where they left off to end the opening frame, finally breaking the deadlock in the 67
th.
Herbert's first of two on the night saw the fourth-year midfielder convert a
Luke Norman pass into the middle of the box with a left footed shot, high and well clear of a desperate diving attempt by Guelph keeper Liam Glas.
Seven minutes later, UBC got some insurance when Norman found Herbert again.
Henri Godbout held the ball well before passing off to Norman who one-touched at the top of the box to Herbert. The ball was then sent across the crease with a low shot, inside the far post, Herbert's second multi-goal game of the season.
Any remaining doubt as to the outcome of the match came in the 86
th when U SPORTS Player of the Year,
Max Comsia, showed terrific poise along the goal line before sliding a pass to an unmarked
Sebastian Agerskov who struck for his first national championship goal and the 3-0 T-Birds advantage.
Scoring his second and third goals at a U SPORTS Championship, Herbert was named UBC's Player of the Match.
Herbert and Norman both finished with multi-point efforts, not to be outdone by stellar play in UBC's midfield and back line.
"Credit to Luke, taking his moment coming in off the bench and helping change the game immediately with the two setups," Mosher said. "Olly of course the two goals. (
Brennen Fuerst) and (
Yu-Hsuan Yuan) won lots of second balls, and that's a key piece. We knew that would be a key piece to the battle today, winning second balls and breaking plays up and there's not many better at doing that than those two. Credit also to the back line. Guelph was held without a shot on goal and that's credit to the back line and with Yush and Brenno winning those loose balls, really taking away anything they had."
Awaiting their semifinal opponents, the 'Birds immediately turn to preparing to advance to a national championship final for the second time in the last three years.
Kickoff for UBC's semifinal battle vs the Vikes is set for 7:15 p.m. Friday at Centennial Stadium. The game will be available live on
CBC Sports' YouTube Channel and
CBC Gem.
