Rugby Dinos concede title to the UBC T-birds

LETHBRIDGE Playing in their first Canada West final since 2006, the UBC Thunderbirds scored 21 unanswered second half points en route to claiming the program’s first ever Canada West title with a 26-12 win over the defending Champion Calgary Dinos.

Both teams had already qualified for the U Sports national championship hosted in Ottawa in two weeks following the semifinal wins on Saturday, but the Thunderbirds will go in as the Canada West Champion and receive a higher seed.

UBC halted the Dinos’ quest for a fourth straight Canada West title but the Dinos will regroup and look toward the U Sports championship.

Nine minutes into the game, 2018 Canada West MVP Kaselle Menin rumbled in for the first score and with Catherine Ohler’s convert, the Dinos grabbed an early seven-point lead.

With UBC pushing into Calgary territory, Shoshanah Seumanutafa deftly kicked the ball forward into space with Emma Feldinger diving on the ball for UBC’S first try in the 24th minute, but with a missed convert the T-birds trailed 7-5.

Off a UBC offside penalty only five yards from the UBC touch area, the Dinos set up the offence and Mariam Ibrahim answered right back for the Dinos only six minutes later.

As expected, UBC wouldn’t go away quietly. A long buildup with multiple phases put the T-birds in a prime scoring area in the final minutes of the opening half, but a steal in a tackle turned the ball over to the Dinos and Calgary was able to kick the ball to relieve the pressure and a 12-5 lead at the half.

An early second-half penalty on the Dinos put the Thunderbirds on the offensive and UBC was awarded a penalty try in the 42nd minute to tie the game at 12-12.

Following a yellow card issued to UBC’S Rori Wood, both sides played with 14 players aside and it was the T-birds turn to go on the offensive. Gillian Boag powered through the Dino defence to give the T-birds their first lead of the game, 19-12 after a Seumanutafa convert.

Back to full strength and a scrum deep in the Dinos end, the T-birds added to their lead in the 63rd minute. Rachel Smith picked up the try and Seumanutafa made the tough kick from the far left side to give the T-birds a two converted try lead.

TROJANS SOCCER

For the second year in a row, the SAIT Trojans men’s soccer team will enter the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference Championship (hosted by NAIT in Edmonton) as the South Division’s No. 1 seed. The Trojans locked that position down this weekend as they wrapped up their regular season on Sunday with a 1-0 road victory over the host Olds College Broncos. The Trojans went 10-1-1 in the regular season.

In Sunday’s contest, the game went a full 85 minutes before SAIT’S Joseph Lambele fired a shot into the Olds net to break the scoreless tie and score the game-winning goal.

SAIT will have a bye into this coming weekend’s championship. They will play the winner of the South’s No. 3 seed, Red Deer College, and the North’s second-ranked Concordia in Saturday’s semifinal game at Emerald Hills Regional Park at 6:30 p.m.

The Trojans women’s team won five straight games to end the regular season as the division’s No. 2 seed going into the conference championship. The final win came Sunday as they leapfrogged Olds College thanks to a 3-0 win.

SAIT finished the regular season with a 7-3-2 mark.

Olds grabbed the third and final playoff spot from the South with a 7-4-1 record.

As the second seed, SAIT will now meet the North Division’s third seed, King’s University (55-2) in a quarter-final matchup Friday at 11 a.m.