Canada West News

Goalkeeper Peter Whyte was the UBC Thunderbirds hero as they made it five straight Canada West men's soccer championships with a dramatic penalty shoot-out victory over the Calgary Dinos on home turf at Thunderbird Stadium Sunday afternoon. The Thunderbirds were made to work hard for their 22nd conference banner by a dogged Dinos side that were hard to break down, lively on the counter, and had a kick to win it on penalties themselves before Whyte came up with two huge saves. Still scoreless at the end of 120 minutes of play, the teams headed into penalties. Calgary had a chance to win it with their fifth kick, but Whyte denied Koen Schoffner, and two rounds later Markus Kaiser tucked away the decisive penalty to claim gold and send UBC to another nationals. "I feel 10 years older and maybe a little bit closer to retirement after that one," UBC head coach Mike Mosher joked after his side's dramatic victory. "We were down to the last shots and pressure shots to sink it and keep the thing going, so credit to the boys. They stepped up and delivered in critical moments and the PK shootout there. And what can you say about Pete [Whyte]? He comes up with the saves when we needed them. Huge. Huge. Finals are never easy and they certainly made it difficult for us. We weren't at our sharpest today but we've been saying during this playoff run and even the run towards it that you deal with adversity and you take it on. With championship teams, it is how you deal with those critical moments and when you get challenged." UBC dominated the first half possession, while Calgary were happy to hit on the counter, as the Thunderbirds fired in the shots but without causing too much issues for Dinos keeper Jake Ruschkowski. The Dinos had the first real chance of the half 19 minutes in when William Omoreniye rose well but headed wide. The Thunderbirds’ best chance came six minutes later when Ruschkowski could only parry a fierce Nick Fussell strike but the Dinos cleared the danger from the rebound. UBC upped the intensity from the get go to start the second half, launching wave after wave of attacks and coming close on a couple of occasions. Fussell forced a save from Ruschkowski just 44 seconds after the restart. The Calgary keeper was unable to hold on to the ball but scrambled to recover the rebound with Victory Shumbusho waiting to pounce and poke home the opener. And it was the same story on the hour mark, with Rushkowski keeping out a fierce 12 yard strike from Fussell and just getting to the loose ball ahead of Shumbusho. The Dinos were still very a much a danger themselves and their semi-final hero Decklin Mahmi almost became their final hero with a lovely looping effort from an Omoreniye cross that brought a fantastic one-handed acrobatic save from Whyte as he flew across his goal. Rushkowski came up with another huge save midway through the half to deny Shumbusho, after the striker's lovely touch and turn. Both sides pushed hard to try and find the winner in regulation time, but neither could and they headed for another 30 minutes in the enthralling encounter. The Thunderbirds dominated the play in extra time but it was the Dinos that had the best chance on one of the rare forays forward, with Gianmarco Plenzik firing into the side netting. Tristan Nkoghe almost won it in the last minute of extra time, but Ruschkowski denied the T-birds again and we were heading to spot kicks. Eryk Kobza put away the first kick before Ruschkowski kept out Nick Fussell to give the Dinos a huge advantage. Plenzik, Omoreniye, and Mahmi converted for Calgary, with Gardner, Shumbusho, and Noah Hrdlicka scoring for UBC, giving Schoffner the chance to win it for the Albertans. Whyte came up with the big stop to send it to sudden death. Kundai Dziwa was on target of Calgary, before a cheeky hop and a skip effort from Marcus Puhalj tied it all up again. Whyte then came up big again to deny Derek Brust before Kaiser fired home the winning spot kick and give UBC the 6-5 win on penalties. It was a heartbreaking way to lose for the Dinos after such a gutsy season and late run. Calgary now have to be content with a silver medal, but it's been a strong year with a lot of upsides and solid foundations for Brendan O'Connell's side. "We're immensely proud," O'Connell said after the match. "The boys have been committed all season, they only came back in August, and we peaked at the right time. We're a very young team and this experience is going to hold them in good stead. We're very, very proud of them. I think this is going to be a strong team for the next three, four, five years and we've got others coming through as well. It does keep the program in good stead and they absolutely deserve to be there. We won the games that mattered. They gave absolutely everything." UBC now turn their attentions to their quest for a 14th U SPORTS national title in Kamloops next week and are heading into it full of confidence. "There's lots of new teams [this year]," Mosher noted. "We'll have to do a little bit of research on a few of them. But this is a good group. This is as good a group as we've had I think for a lot of years. We've been there and had some heartbreaks, a bunch of PKs and extra time and what not over the last couple of years. We'll enjoy this moment here today, but we'll be back to it tomorrow and start getting ready for Thursday. New faces but everybody's earned their way there. I say it every year - the standard has gotten better and better and better across the country in the different conferences and there's no easy games."

UBC Thunderbirds make it a double. Above are the Men’s team and below the Women’s with the Canada West title banners.

The UBC Thunderbirds capped off a dominant Canada West season with a 2-1 victory over their old foes the Trinity Western Spartans at Thunderbird Stadium on Saturday night to capture the T-Birds’ first conference title since 2016. Katalin Tolnai's seventh goal in three playoff matches and a first half strike from Sophie Damian gave UBC a two goal lead at the break. Trinity Western came storming back in the second half, and Sierra Halldorson reduced the deficit to one but UBC held on to claim their 16th Canada West banner.

"What a year," a jubilant UBC head coach Jesse Symons said after the match. "For me, the players through and through worked so hard for this. They came and competed every game and we got the best out of every team every game. We were able to come out on top and full credit to them, they were phenomenal this game. Trinity battled so hard against us and made it tight. We had to hold on and that's what this conference is about. Every game is so tight and we found a way. We started off so well, which we've been doing all season, so it was great to see that to start the game today too." Their fast paced start reaped its reward again just five minutes in when Sophia Ferreira played a fantastic long ball forward for Tolnai to chase down, and she timed her run to perfection to run in on goal, and coolly slot past Hannah Miller. Trinity Western regrouped and enjoyed their best spell of pressure without really testing Sarah Johns in the UBC goal. The Spartans’ inability to turn that pressure into an equaliser was punished in the 26th minute when Damian fired home the Thunderbirds' second, bringing down a Danielle Steer knock on from a perfectly weighted long free kick into the box from Emma Hooten, shrugging off a challenge, and tucking it away past Miller. UBC wanted to put the game to bed early and kept the pressure on. They had chances to do so with an Ella Sunde header and a Ferreira shot, but had to settle for a two goal lead at the half. Both teams came out with a lot of intensity to start the second half, with the Spartans just edging things, and they got their reward in the 58th minute to reduce the deficit to one. A long corner to the back post was met by Holland Stiel, who delicately played it back in across goal for Halldorson to put it away. UBC nearly restored their two goal lead immediately with a fantastic Nisa Reehal strike that was met by an equally fantastic acrobatic save from Miller. Reehal was sent clear in the 80th minute, but as she bore down on goal Jessica Vance did just enough defensively to stop her having a clean strike and Miller made the save at her near post. The Spartans pushed for the late leveller but couldn't find the breakthrough. Trinity Western now turn their attention to next week's U SPORTS nationals, having clinched their spot with their semi-final win over Thompson Rivers on Friday night. "Again, we were the makers of our own problems," Spartans head coach Graham Roxburgh said after the match. "It's just frustrating. They're a good team, you give them a sniff and they're going to score. The difference for me was they got their three or four chances and buried two, we had three or four good balls into the box in the first half but not enough hunger, not enough fight to keep the ball alive because we generated enough to score. Second half I said, girls, we didn't play well, we didn't give a good account of ourselves. All you've got to do now is go and do that and if you do that the game is going to change and it did.” UBC head off to nationals as the number one ranked team in the country, as they look to claim their eighth national championship and follow up their success in 2019 that also featured many members of Symons' current group. "We've got a mature team and we've got a lot of players that have won a national championship," Symons said. "They felt the defeat last year in the semi-final. We're a team that objective one was to win the league, then we found a way to host, which was even better, now we're going to enjoy winning Canada West. It's such a hard conference to win. We'll enjoy this but next week is going to be tough. There's a lot of talented teams there. We're going to put our best foot forward to get back into that semi-final and make amends for last year."