For 60 minutes, the UFV Cascades women’s soccer team couldn’t get going against the University of Calgary Dinos on Friday.
The Dinos opened the scoring in the 36th minute, and then added a goal three minutes into the second half to put a headlock on UFV.
From the 60 minute mark on, the Cascades turned it on and dominated play. Danica Kump scored at the 63 minute mark, converting on a rebound off a shot from Simi Lehal.
Five minutes later, Kump nailed a shot that hit the crossbar and bounced down. Lehal pounced it to tie the game up at two.
The Cascades buzzed offensively for the rest of the game, but couldn’t convert on a slew of offensive chances. UFC head coach Rob Giesbrecht said he liked his team’s second half.
“It took about 60 minutes for us to decide to start playing our assertive style of soccer,” he said. “Once we did that we got ourselves back in it, but we left it a little too late.”
He said Lehal and Kump were huge for the Cascades, especially in the absence of star player Monika Levarsky, who went down with an injury early in the game. She suffered a ‘lower body injury’, and was sent to the hospital to recover.
The women take on Lethbridge tomorrow (Saturday) at 5:30 p.m. at the MRC Fields. It’s the final game of the Canada West season, with the women hosting a playoff game next week. Their opponent and final placing will be determined tomorrow.
The men continued their playoff push, and officially qualified for the postseason due to the combination of a tie in their game tonight, and a loss by the TRU Wolfpack to the UBC Thunderbirds.
The men tied the UNBC Timberwolves 1-1 on Friday, with James Najman scoring for UFV.
Najman tallied in the 12th minute, but UNBC hung around and evened the game up in the 59th minute.
The tie continues a strong October for the team, which has seen them go an impressive 4-1-1. Last week saw the team come up with two huge wins in must-win games against UBC-O and TRU.
The men will likely be taking on the number two team in the Prairie division, but final placing and playoff opponents will be determined following tomorrows games.
Read Wednesday’s print edition of the Abbotsford News for more on the entire weekend and the playoff picture.
