Weekend Rundown: Another dominant weekend for women’s soccer

The T-Birds is heading into the season with a dominant 6-0. File Salomon Micko Benrimoh

Welcome back to Weekend Rundown, your place to stay up to date with all of the different Thunderbirds teams!

Another weekend sweep for women’s soccer

Women’s soccer challenged the Fraser Valley Cascades on the road this past weekend and brought home another weekend sweep. This marks the T-Birds heading into the season with a dominant 6-0.

This past Friday evening at Rotary Stadium, midfielder Tess McRae scored in the thirty-sixth minute along with Sophie Damian finishing off with another goal ending the game on a clean sheet.

The Cascades had multiple scoring chances, but Emily Moore made solid seven saves for the T-Birds.

The T-Birds won another game against the Cascades this past Sunday with a 2-1 win.

Danielle Steer scored her seventh goal of the season, also a team-leading goal record, in the late first half.

The Cascades broke T-Birds’ five straight clean sheets when Halle McCambley of the Cascades followed through with a goal, but T-Bird’s forward Emma Hooton responded with a goal in the 71st minute to keep their perfect record.

The T-Birds will attempt to keep their perfect record this weekend as they host the UBC Okanagan Heat, kicking off at 5:30 p.m. at Thunderbird Stadium.

['auto'] File Stanley Lee

First loss of the season for men’s soccer as they lose to the Cascades

It’s been a difficult season for men’s soccer with multiple draws so far. The T-Birds closed this weekend with 2-1-3, a win and a loss, against their host the Fraser Valley Cascades.

Refs handed out ten yellow cards between both teams this past Friday evening at Rotary Stadium. However, referees didn’t eject anyone because they were distributed to multiple individuals in both teams.

The tight win on Friday was defined by Mackenzie Cole’s goal with T-Bird Nick Fussell’s beautiful pass in the fifty-fourth minute.

T-Birds were not able to keep the winning streak on Sunday afternoon against the Cascades as the Cascades’ Trevor Zanatta made a new record-breaking Canada West single-game record with four assists.

Excellents saves by Bennett Mckay were not enough for the T-Bird to bring home another win with the Cascades’ two goal lead in the first twelfth minutes.

The Cascades Manpal Brar scored twice in a two-minute span and gave momentum to the Cascades for another two singles made by Jun Won Choi and Anthony Vega.

T-Bird midfielder Logan Chung scored in the fifty-first minute in an attempt to close the gap, but Taylor Richardson of the Cascades crushed the T-Birds’ hope with the successful four-goal home side lead.

The T-Birds will host the UBC Okanagan Heat on October 8 and 9 at the Thunderbird Stadium, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m.

['auto'] File Stanley Lee

Hard-fought victory against the Dinos for women’s rugby

Women’s rugby battled back from a 20-12 deficit in the first half to take a very convincing 39-20 victory over the Calgary Dinos.

A very sunny Sunday was a fitting backdrop as the two best women’s rugby teams in Canada West locked heads for their first and only meeting of the season.

Rory Wood got the T-Birds off to a fast start, but three consecutive scoring drives by Calgary saw them down in a deficit. Emily Baker scored another try, but Calgary answered right back.

Before the halftime whistle went, Savannah Bauder got the ‘Birds back within three.

The second half was all UBC, with Piper Logan scoring twice, then Bauder adding another two tries to push the game in UBC’s favour. A strongly contested match, both teams were up for the match.

The Thunderbirds had to fight against stiff resistance to get the result, but with this win, UBC goes to 3-0 on the season. It was a statement win, with nothing really coming easy in the first half. Finding the extra gear in the second should bode well as UBC continues on the road for another Canada West title.

The rugby squad is back in action on October 14, taking on the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns at home. Lethbridge is coming off an emphatic victory over the University of Alberta Pandas 24-3 this past Saturday.

['auto'] Isabella Falsetti

Another loss for the men’s football team against the Huskies

The men’s football team started the season with the second straight losses this past Friday against the Saskatchewan Huskies.

Another brilliant performance by Garrett Rooker with 25-for-34 for 283 yards along with two touchdowns, but it wasn’t enough to close the gap as the Huskies spoiled the T-Birds’ 2021 home opener.

At the end of the opening quarter, the T-Birds showed some offensive work that got them into the red zone with the help of Rooker as he later made himself into the end zone for his first career rushing touchdown.

Although the T-Birds attempted to bounce back after the second quarter, the Huskies’ veteran quarterback Mason Nyhus stopped the T-Birds with a solid game, 626 total yards of offence.

The T-Birds made multiple short field goal attempts in the second half, but the Huskies’ defence kept the T-Birds out of the end zone.

UBC really struggled with defence in the second half. “We [still] have young mistakes on the offensive line and young mistakes at receiver that hurt us too, but bottom line is we’re 0-2 and we have to find a way to win a couple games, this Saskatchewan team is a good football program,” said UBC head coach Blake Nill.

“But, the key is ... [t]here’s no easy team in this conference. We’re going to be in a battle every week.”

['auto'] Diana Hong

Women’s field hockey returns to the turf with a season-opening Canada West Tournament

This weekend, the women’s field hockey team had their home opener at a round robin tournament against the University of Calgary Dinos, hosted by the defending champion University of Victoria Vikings. T-Birds closed off their season opener with 2-2.

The T-Birds started off strong on Friday evening, defeating the Dinos 7-0. Fourth-year forward and Vancouver native Thora Rae scored two of those points, while her teammates Miranda Yee, Jordyn Faiczak, Kayleigh Chow, Izzy Fraser and rookie Mikayla Stelling each earned one point for UBC. First-year T-Bird Ishavel Sekhon earned her first shutout.

Day two the T-Birds saw a loss to the Vikings. On Saturday morning, fourth-year midfielder Sara Goodman from Duncan, BC earned the sole goal in the forty-ninth minute for a 3-1 final score.

Despite the loss, UBC had most of possession in the first half until the first goal by the Vikes, but this loss moves the T-Birds to 1-1 while Vikes improve to 2-0 on the season.

However, the T-Birds picked up another win on Sunday morning’s game against the Dinos and finished with a 5-0. Third[-]year defender Jillian Wallace earned the first point of the game; and Jordyn Faiczak, a fourth[-]year midfielder from Waterloo, ON, and Sara Goodman both racked their second point of the tournament, while Thora Rae earned her third.

Rookie midfielder/forward Kaia Cooper from North Vancouver, BC also earned her first point in the fifty-first minute of the game.

Later that day though, the T-Birds ended the day with a 3-0 loss to the Vikings.

The T-Birds will face the Dinos again from October 22 to 24 as they host the next leg of the Canada West round robin tournaments.

['auto'] File Patrick Gillin

Men’s hockey continue strong pre-season with dominant weekend finish

The ‘Birds continued a strong preseason this weekend, remaining undefeated in the Captain’s Cup Tournament.

On Friday, they met with the Vancouver Island Mariners at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbirds Sports Arena.

UBC started the game strong, scoring on their first offensive possession just over ninety seconds into the game. Tyler Sandhu saw a redirected point shot from defenseman Ryan Pouliot land on his stick back door and potted it into the open Mariner’s net to get UBC on the board with their first shot.

From then on, it was all T-Birds. The Vancouver Island University Mariners’ only goal of the game would come on a power play in the second period, where Gavin Rauser found the puck down low and slipped it past the sprawling Thunderbirds goalie.

UBC regained a three goal lead just minutes later, on a power play of their own. With the help of rookie netminder Dorrin Luding, UBC held on to win the game 4-1. Luding made important saves in the final minutes, showing he can be a solid option in goal this season. At the other end, Derek Krall was a bright spot for VIU in net, as UBC outshot the Mariners 32-24.

The following day, on the second half of the back to back, the T-Birds wasted no time returning to their dominating play, this time against the University of Victoria Vikes.

Both teams were kept off the scoresheet in the opening frame, but the T-Birds controlled the play, not allowing a shot on goal. Early in the second period, Liam Kindree capitalized on a UVIC turnover to break the game wide open and put the T-Birds up 1-0.

Less than a minute later, UBC captain Tyler Sandhu tipped a beautiful pass from Kindree into the Vikes net, extending the lead.

T-Birds Head Coach Sven Butenschön had high praise for the new captain after the game.

“[Sandhu has] massive respect from his teammates. In the second period, he didn’t like the way the game was going, and [he] basically took the game into his own hands. They scored two quick goals, and he created both [of them]. It was a pretty obvious selection [to make him captain],” said Butenschön.

The Vikes kept things interesting right until the end, but the Thunderbirds took flight offensively and walked away with a 5-2 victory.

With just one game left in the Captain’s Cup Tournament, Butenschön feels its importance due to a lot of “catch up” to do with the pandemic and to get their timing back as well as figuring out their team identity.

The Thunderbirds will return to the ice next Saturday for the Captains Cup Final.