Box Score Box Score

The University of British Columbia Thunderbirds scored a 7-1 victory over the Regina Cougars on Sunday afternoon in the third and deciding game of a Canada West semifinal series at The Co-operators Centre.

The win completes a series comeback for UBC, which trailed 1-0 after losing 2-1 to the Cougars on Friday night. The Thunderbirds pulled out a triple-overtime victory on Saturday night before completing the comeback with Sunday's victory. UBC will head to Calgary next weekend for the Canada West final and also earns an automatic berth to the 2013 CIS Championship in Toronto with the series victory.

Tatiana Rafter scored twice for UBC and is now tied for the Canada West lead with four postseason goals, while Stephanie Schaupmeyer, Nicole Saxvik, Emily Grainger, Nikola Brown-John, and Genevieve Carpenter-Boesch also scored for the Thunderbirds. Making her third start in as many days for UBC, Danielle Dube made 24 saves in the victory.

It took just 24 seconds for UBC to get on the board. Saxvik and Rafter broke in on a 2-on-1 with Saxvik sliding it over to Rafter, who took a nice wrist shot from near the right faceoff dot over the blocker of Cougar starting goalie Jennifer Schmidt to give the Thunderbirds the early lead.

UBC struck two more times before the nine-minute mark of the opening period. Stephanie Schaupmeyer scored five minutes later to chase Schmidt, but Saxvik scored on Cougar backup Toni Ross less than three minutes after Schaupmeyer's goal to take a commanding 3-0 lead.

Schmidt went back into the game following Saxvik's goal and the Cougars showed some signs of life shortly thereafter, as Wheeler took a nice pass from Gina Campbell on a 2-on-1 and redirected it over the glove hand of Dube to cut the lead to two.

Grainger restored UBC's three-goal lead with five minutes left in the first period after chipping a shot over a sprawled-out Schmidt from the slot, giving the Thunderbirds a 4-1 lead as the teams went into the first intermission. UBC dominated the shot tally in the first, outshooting Regina by a 20-6 margin.

UBC essentially sealed the win with two goals in a span of less than a minute past the midway mark of the second. Rafter scored her second of the game at 12:39 and Brown-John bulged the twine 45 seconds later to give the Thunderbirds a 6-1 lead. Carpenter-Boesch capped the scoring four minutes later with a shorthanded goal on a nice individual effort.

UBC was 1-for-9 on the power play, while the Cougars were held scoreless on their three opportunities. UBC ended up outshooting the U of R by a 42-25 margin in the win.