Photo credit Martin Bazyl

TORONTO (CIS) – The top seeded UBC Thunderbirds played to a 1-1 draw with their Canada West rival Victoria Vikes as Day 2 of the 40th CIS-FHC field hockey championship wrapped up at U of T’s Back Campus Fields on Friday night.

The tie pushes the host Toronto Varsity Blues (2-0-0) into Sunday’s championship final and drops the fourth-seeded Guelph Gryphons (0-2-0) into the bronze-medal match for the sixth straight year.

A win or tie for the Vikes (1-0-1) tomorrow versus the Blues will solidify their spot in the final. They kick off the last day of round robin action Saturday at 1 p.m.

“If we can do things collectively rather than individually I think we’ll have more success,” said Vikes head coach Lynne Beecroft, in her 31st season at the helm. “U of T is a very strong team. They’ve obviously proven that with a 3-0 win over UBC so we know we have our work cut out for us tomorrow.”

In the result of a Victoria loss tomorrow, the Thunderbirds will have to win big versus the Gryphons to tie the Vikes in the standings and secure the goal differential tiebreaker.

“We’re going to get back to focusing on the process, as we’ve done all year,” said first-year UBC head coach Robin D’Abreo. “I think we have to focus on our game plan and execute our set plays with a little more consistency and efficiency as we look to put our best foot forward tomorrow.”

The Vikes opened the scoring in the eighth minute as third-year veteran Kathleen Leahy of Victoria fired the ball into the bottom of the net.

2014 CIS all-Canadian Hannah Haughn notched UBC’s first goal of the tournament in the 23rd minute as she sent a booming shot off a penalty corner through the legs of Victoria goalie Sheriden Goodmanson.

“I think we played a bit better than yesterday,” added Beecorft. “I thought we had some good opportunities to score and Lauren Logush made some great saves for them. It could have been a different outcome for sure.”

Both teams had numerous chances to score, with both Goodmanson and Logush registering save after save to keep the game even until the final whistle.

“I am really proud of the girls,” added UBC’s D’Abreo. “I think the biggest difference between yesterday and today was that we came out confident and came out looking to assert our style of play. Yesterday we were a little intimidated by the gravity of the situation and today we looked more like ourselves.”

SCORING SUMMARY
VIC: 1-0: 1
UBC: 1-0: 1
 
First half
VIC Kathleen Leahy (1), 8th minute
UBC Hannah Haughn (1), 23rd minute

Second half
No scoring
 
Goaltenders
VIC: Sheriden Goodmanson (T, 70:00, 1 GA, 1-0-1)
UBC: Lauren Logush  (T, 70:00, 1 GA, 0-1-1)

Players of the game
VIC: Annie Walters-Shumka (Victoria, B.C.)
UBC: Hannah Haughn (North Vancouver, B.C.)

STANDINGS, SCHEDULE & RESULTS

Round-robin standings

GP-W-T-GF-GA-PTS

NOTE: 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie.

Thursday, Oct. 30
16:30 Game 1: Victoria 3, Guelph 2
18:30 Game 2: Toronto 3, UBC 0

Friday, Oct. 31
16:30 Game 3: Toronto 4, Guelph 1
18:30 Game 4: Victoria 1, UBC 1

Saturday, Nov. 1
13:00 Game 5: Toronto vs Victoria (CIS-SIC.tv)
15:00 Game 6: UBC vs. Guelph (CIS-SIC.tv)

Sunday, Nov. 2
13:00 Bronze medal: Guelph vs TBD (CIS-SIC.tv)
15:00 Championship final: Toronto vs TBD (CIS-SIC.tv)

About Canadian Interuniversity Sport

Canadian Interuniversity Sport is the national governing body of university sport in Canada. Every year, over 11,500 student-athletes and 700 coaches from 56 universities and four regional associations vie for 21 national championships in 12 different sports. CIS also provides high performance international opportunities for Canadian student-athletes at Winter and Summer Universiades, as well as numerous world university championships. For further information, visit www.cis-sic.ca or follow us on:

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