VANCOUVER – Building off a terrific first week of the Canada West season, the UBC Thunderbirds (2-0-0) host the Trinity Western Spartans (1-1-0) Wednesday evening for the back half of a key pacific division home-and-home series.
Riding a wave of positivity to start the campaign, the No. 1 ranked T-Birds will get an even bigger boost with an expected capacity crowd at Thunderbird Stadium with over 3000 first year UBC students taking in the action as part of their annual Jump Start program.
"I'm really excited for our group to get the opportunity to play in front of a full stadium, we haven't had this opportunity for probably over ten years," said UBC head coach,
Mike Mosher, who recorded his 250
th career conference victory in last Thursday's home opening win over UFV. "Everyone's looking forward to it and I think it's the same for our opponent, we don't get many opportunities like this where there's 3500 people and it's loud and energetic. "I'm excited for our guys to get this opportunity because I really do think they've been deserving of it given the quality of our teams over the last many years."
Boasting a pair of clean sheet wins – including Saturday night's 3-0 victory at Trinity Western – there's not a lot to pick apart in the Thunderbirds' game at the moment. But, to a man, the team knows things will only get harder from here.
"It's definitely a positive situation with the two wins, five goals and zero against, so those are all good, but it's early in the season still," Mosher said. "We've only played the five pre-season games and then these two, so we just got to keep growing – that's the goal, to keep getting better as each game and week comes to us. That was certainly the case over the weekend and hopefully we continue that trend."
The Spartans will undoubtedly be hungry to avenge Saturday's defeat, their fourth loss to UBC in as many games dating back to October of 2024.
"It's pacific division Canada West men's soccer – at the end of the regular season things are always going to be very tight, points are very valuable, every game is important. I would expect a bounce back from them but at the same time we're going to be ready and keep building upon our positive start."
Aside from
Roko Vukic's back-to-back clean sheets in goal for the T-Birds, the team's other highlight performance thus far has to be that of third-year forward
Max Comsia whose three goal, four point weekend earned him this year's inaugural Canada West Player of the Week award.
"I'm thrilled for Max and the start he's had. Player of the Week is fully deserved, the game against Trinity, he was excellent. Beyond the two goals (Saturday), his performance in the second half when he was the lone striker and we were down a man, he was terrific. He held the ball up for us in moments when we really needed it, he helped shape the play defensively, he was great.
"Max has worked really hard to improve himself as a player and hopefully he'll build upon this past weekend and a really positive season he had last year."
Wednesday night's Jump Start game marks the final home date for the 'Birds until September 18. Kickoff for what is also the final regular season contest against the Spartans is set for 7:00 p.m. at Thunderbird Stadium.
Tickets are available online and the game will also be streamed
live on Canada West TV.
