The reverberations of legends will be felt on fields from Vancouver to Toronto this weekend as University of Victoria Vikes teams perform in the playoffs.
UVic head coach Tracy David made the list, along with Emily Zurrer of Crofton and Clare Rustad of Salt Spring, in the new book Canadian Soccer’s All-Time Top 100 Women’s Footballers by Richard Scott. After her national team playing days, she has guided the fortunes as head coach of the Vikes for 22 seasons and has them in the sa国际传媒 West Final Four at UBC with a semifinal match tonight against the Trinity Western Spartans.
UVic was 10-4-2 in the regular season and is 2-0 in the playoffs for its first visit to the Final Four since 2017.
“We’ve embraced a hard, gritty, tough work ethic,” said David.
“Now there’s a sense of belief in the squad. We’ve got great team chemistry at the moment. We are in it for each other.”
That has led to playoff victories over the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades on penalties and 2-0 over the Prairie Division top-seed MacEwan Griffins in Edmonton on a brace from Erin Jensen to reach the sa国际传媒 West Final Four.
Third-year Vikes striker Jensen, a graduate of Nanaimo District Secondary, has 11 goals in the regular season and playoffs, and second-year UVic striker Ruby Nicholas from Quesnel has 10 assists in the regular season and playoffs.
The Vikes and Spartans (10-2-3 in regular season and 1-0 in playoffs) split their two regular-season games so tonight’s semifinal looks to be there for either team to grasp.
“We know Trinity Western is a good squad but we beat them once this season,” noted David.
The other semifinal features the Pacific Division top-seed UBC Thunderbirds playing the Prairie Division second-seed University of Saskatchewan Huskies. The semifinal winners will advance to the sa国际传媒 West championship game on Friday.
Meanwhile, the sa国际传媒 West-champion Vikes will be going for the women’s field hockey national-championship five-peat when UVic opens the best-of-three U Sports final against the Ontario champion Varsity Blues on Friday in Toronto.
The Vikes won their fourth consecutive national championship and 15th overall in former head coach Lynne Beecroft’s 39-year career last year on home turf. The UVic field was officially named in honour of the Olympian Beecroft during a ceremony last month. Even without graduated Vikes star Anna Mollenhauer, currently representing sa国际传媒 in the 2023 Santiago Pan Am Games, the Vikes haven’t missed a beat under new head coach Krista Thompson, who was Beecroft’s assistant for 26 seasons.
VIKES NOTES: David said she was “completely honoured” to make the list of the 100 greatest Canadian female soccer players “especially considering there was not a lot of video of us from back in those days.” … Coach Larry Stefanek’s UVic men’s soccer team (11-4-2) also had a fine season before losing in the sa国际传媒 West playoff semifinals 3-1 to the Mount Royal Cougars of Calgary. Vikes fourth-year midfielder Javier Sagaste, out of Reynolds Secondary, was named sa国际传媒 West first-team all-star. … The UVic women’s rugby team is in the U Sports national championship tournament for the third consecutive year and opened Wednesday in the quarter-finals against the Ottawa Gee Gees at Laval, Que. … The sa国际传媒 West basketball season opens Friday night at CARSA performance gym with the Vikes hosting the University of Calgary Dinos.
