VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds booked their berth at this year's U SPORTS Men's Soccer Championship, and next week's Canada West Championship game, with a hard fought 4-2 extra time victory over the University of Fraser Valley Cascades at Thunderbird Stadium on Sunday afternoon. This marks the ninth straight season that the T-Birds have reached the Canada West Final.
The all-BC Canada West Semifinal was always going to be a closely contested affair between two teams that have a plethora of attacking talent, but hard to break down defences, and it needed 120 minutes of soccer to find the winner.
Joven Mann pulled the strings in the first half for UBC, grabbing a goal and assisting
Henri Godbout's marker to give the Thunderbirds the lead at the break, with Ebi Igali countering in between for UFV.
Mateo Brazinha scored a golazo for UFV with 15 minutes to go, to send the match into extra time, before
Eric Lajeunesse scored his first two goals of the season to send UBC into another Canada West championship game and back to nationals.
"Firstly, fair play to UFV, they made it very difficult," UBC head coach
Mike Mosher mused after the match. "Their second goal was as good a strike as you're going to see at any level. It's kind of the year for making it difficult. That's been our M.O., but I guess that makes it all the sweeter. Now we're in the Canada West Final and punched our tickets to nationals.
"But gosh, on two different occasions, we're up and then they're back in it. But I was confident and comfortable enough going into extra time that we would go and find another one and then don't concede again."
It was an entertaining start to the first, with both teams showing their attacking prowess.
The first chance fell to UBC eight minutes in, with Godbout heading a
Chris Lee corner off the outside of the back stanchion.
The Thunderbirds got the early breakthrough they were looking for in the 11th minute on a quick transition play that saw
Luke Norman play the ball outside to a streaking Mann, who finished to the far corner with aplomb.
UBC's lead was to last just three minutes before UFV found the equalizer with a fantastic team goal.
Kevin Mailand played a nice give and go to get into the box, centering for Igali to tuck it away past
Bennett McKay from six yards out.
Cascades goalkeeper Jackson Cowx came up with a couple of big saves to first deny a fierce
Oliver Herbert strike and then a Mann effort, but he couldn't do anything to stop the Thunderbirds going back into the lead in the 38th minute.
Once again it was Herbert causing problems for the Cascades backline, showing great tenacity to win the ball back in the box before sending a dangerous ball across goal, that was deftly deflected by Mann, before Godbout directed the ball home and sent UBC into the half with the lead.
The second half saw UBC dominate possession, but without creating any clear-cut chances to put the tie to bed, and their inability to add to their tally was punished in the 75th minute thanks to a stunning long range strike from Brazinha that beat McKay all ends up.
Stung, UBC fought back with
Eric Kim crashing an effort off the bar before Cowx denied
Brennen Fuerst and then Kim, and the match headed into extra time.
UBC went ahead for the third time in the afternoon in the 101st minute when Lajeunesse rose superbly to head home a Fuerst free kick, and with UFV desperately trying to find another leveller in the dying embers of the match, the Thunderbirds broke quickly from a Cascades free kick and with Cowx committed up the pitch, Lajeunesse powered forward and fired into the empty net from just inside the visitor's half to seal the victory.
UBC will now host Mount Royal Cougars in next weekend's Canada West Final at Thunderbird Stadium on Friday evening in a rematch of the 2023 Gold Medal Game, before both teams head east for this year's U SPORTS nationals.
"You've got two teams that's a rematch of last year and it could have been the same even the year before that," Mosher said. "They're a good side and you've got two teams that have been in these big games and are pretty battle tested.
"That was one of the things that I said to our group today. You've got a lot of guys that have been through these big games, these impactful games, and let's use it to our advantage versus a team like the Cascades that are younger group for the most part. But it should be a good game next week against Mount Royal."
