In the race to see which program would win a CIS record sixth women’s soccer championship, it was the UBC Thunderbirds prevailing over the Trinity Western Spartans.
Both perennial powerhouse programs were gunning for a sixth Gladys Bean Memorial Trophy.
But it would be a Langley woman who opened the scoring for UBC in what turned out to be a 3-0 Thunderbirds victory over the Langley university on Sunday night at UBC’s Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver.
Off a corner kick in the 18th minute, the Spartans were unable to clear the bouncing ball and Guy — a 2012 Brookswood Secondary graduate — pounced on the loose ball and buried it from 10 yards out.
UBC doubled the lead in the 31st minute when Shayla Chorney got her foot on the ball to redirect it past Ally Williamson.
The goal really hurt as 30 seconds earlier, the Spartans were inches away from tying the score.
UBC rounded out the scoring in the 65th minute when Williamson misplayed Taylor Shannik’s corner kick, with the ball deflecting in.
It was the Thunderbirds first national title since 2006.
“This means everything,” Guy said. “We have faced so much adversity as a team and just to be able to be resilient, to overcome it …. it is very emotional.”
“I think we proved everybody wrong tonight and it feels really good.”
Guy is a fourth-defender with UBC who still has one year of eligibility remaining.
The Spartans were appearing in their record-setting fourth straight national championship game, but after winning the title in both 2012 and 2013, they have dropped the last two gold medal games.
“You have to give (UBC) credit, they smothered us and made it difficult for us to play and our better players found it hard to find space,” said Spartans coach Graham Roxburgh.
“They deserved to win.”
UBC was the only team to defeat the Spartans this season and in four games — three UBC victories and a draw — the Thunderbirds did not concede a single goal.
“They defended very well and are a good team and have some weapons,” Roxburgh said.
In TWU’s other games at nationals, the fifth-seed beat No. 4 Cape Breton 2-0 and then got a measure of revenge in the semifinals, ousting Laval 2-1 in penalty kicks. Laval had defeated the Spartans in the 2014 title game and was riding a 34-match unbeaten streak.
Williamson came up with two saves in the 10-round shootout.
“Credit to my side, I think even after yesterday, with the emotion of going that late, we probably didn’t have as much reserve in the tank (for the final),” Roxburgh said.
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Trinity Western’s Amy Gartke and Stephanie Chin were named to the tournament all-star team.
And at last week’s CIS banquet, Rachel Hutchinson was named the rookie of the year while Williamson and Vanessa Kovacs were named to the all-Canadian team.
Scott Stewart/TWU Athletics
Trinity Western Spartans’ Vanessa Kovacs (#13) was named a CIS tournament all-star at the women’s soccer national championships over the weekend at UBC. The Spartans were making a CIS record fourth straight appearance in the title game, but fell short to the host UBC Thunderbirds 3-0 in the gold medal game.
