After picking up two shutout wins on the road against Northern BC last week, UBC men’s soccer extended their winning streak to seven games by earning yet another shutout victory against the Victoria Vikings.
“The guys have earned it ... It’s great to come up with a big result against a good team and certainly one of our biggest rivals,” said Mike Mosher, Thunderbirds' head coach.
The match was scoreless during the first half with strong defense on both sides of the field. UBC’s closest scoring opportunity came during the 34th minute when forward Gagan Dosanjh attempted a one-timer on Victoria goalkeeper Noah Pawlowski.
The second half kicked off with an early and strong momentum by the T-Birds when midfielder Sean Einarsson brought UBC onto the scoreboard during the 52nd minute. Einarsson produced another goal only two minutes later to increase UBC’s lead to 2-0. Teammates Dosanjh and Titouan Chopin assisted Einarsson’s first two goals.
Einarsson did not finish there. With the assist off defender Adriano Clemente in the 73rd minute, he scored again to further raise UBC’s lead to 3-0 — successfully earning himself the first hat trick of his varsity career. Einarsson’s third goal of the night secured the T-Birds’ 3-0 win against the Vikings.
“He’s got a real knack for scoring big goals ... He does a lot of the things that people don’t notice and one of those is just getting into spots where you score goals,” said Mosher.
Despite having gotten a hat trick in the second half, Einarsson believed that Victoria overall played some solid defense.
“They had a game plan defensively and they executed their set-up pretty well, but I think, in the second half, we were just a bit sharper,” said Einarsson.
Einarsson now has six goals and two assists for a total of 14 points and remains the 'Birds’ leading scorer.
The T-Birds’ 3-0 victory over the Vikings marks the team’s fifth shutout of the season. Mosher attributes the shutout win to the strong defensive play of the Thunderbirds.
“[Victoria's] got some top scorers in the league and they’re not easy players to keep under control and I thought our defense did a good job of that,” said Mosher.
UBC now holds a record of 7-0-1 and continues to remain first place in the Pacific Conference. They will play their next game against Thompson Rivers University next Saturday.
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