An intense 90 minutes solved nothing as two of the country’s top teams battled to a 1-1 draw.
Sarah-Kim Bergeron scored in the 80th minute to give the Spartans women’s soccer team a 1-1 draw with the UBC Thunderbirds on Saturday at Vancouver’s Thunderbird Park.
“Very pleased that we came away from the game with a point,” said Trinity Western coach Graham Roxburgh.
“(It) probably would have been an injustice had we lost.
“But all credit to UBC, they defended very well. We had some very good performances and as a team, we showed a lot of character to battle back, stay patient and generate chances when UBC was defending desperately.”
Trinity Western (8-1-1, 25 points) is ranked third in the country while UBC (7-1-2, 23 points) is fifth. They also sit first and third, respectively, in the Canada West standings, with the Alberta Pandas (8-2-0, 24 points) sandwiched in between.
In the UBC match, neither side managed many quality chances in the first half, but the T-Birds took a 1-0 lead into the locker room thanks to Rachel Ramsden’s strike during stoppage time.
The second half had more scoring chances and the Spartans capitalized on counterattack.
Melissa Mobilio began the play with a long pass to Nikki Wright, who played a high bouncing ball behind the UBC defence. Bergeron won the race to it and nudged it over charging goalkeeper Alyssa Williamson to even the score.
“Sarah-Kim was a real spark off the bench,” Roxburgh said.
“She created some great chances and was unlucky not to have gotten a couple of goals.”
The Spartans are at home for a pair of games this weekend, Friday against the Saskatchewan Huskies (5-3-2, 17 points) and Saturday versus Alberta (8-2-0, 24 points).
Both matches are at Rogers Park on the TWU campus.
With four games remaining, Trinity Western is five points away from clinching a post-season berth.
