For the UNBC Timberwolves, playoffs will have to wait at least one more year.
The UNBC men's soccer team lost both of its weekend games against the Kamloops-based Thompson Rivers University WolfPack. The host WolfPack beat UNBC 1-0 on Friday and 3-0 on Saturday and, in doing so, killed the T-wolves' chances of making it to the post-season for the first time in their three-year history in the Canada West conference of Canadian Interuniversity Sport.
The wins for TRU were its first of the season.
"It was a very disappointing weekend for us but it wasn't for a lack of effort and trying," said UNBC head coach Alan Alderson, whose team finished its schedule at 3-9. "[In this conference] it's very difficult to get points on the road and being as young as we are with seven first-years, two second-year players and two third-year players, and TRU has an older squad.
"The first day of the weekend was a tough game, TRU was desperate for points and we had several shots fly over the bar. On Saturday, TRU took even more chances. We're still incredibly young and promising."
UNBC sits in sixth place in the Pacific Division. Two of its three victories came against Langley's Trinity Western University at home Oct. 4-5.
The WolfPack is right behind the T-wolves at 2-7-1 but has two more matches to play this weekend against Kelowna's UBC Okanagan.
With the season now over, Alderson spent the remainder of Thanksgiving weekend in Surrey checking out the national under-18 Cup (club championships) as the recruiting process for the 2015 lineup now begins.
The T-wolves only lose one player to graduation next year, defender Harjas Grewal, who will earn his biochemistry/molecular biology degree in the spring.
Alderson said with a solid starting roster of first- and second-year players having already gained a lot of experience in only two months of soccer, it'll make recruiting that much easier.
"This year we don't have to bring a single starting candidate," he said. "We'll probably need to bring in five guys but we don't need any specific position. Everybody in the soccer community knows how many close games we had and word is out we're a force to be reckoned with."
The Canada West regular season wraps up this weekend. UBC (9-1) occupies top spot in the Pacific Division, followed by the University of Victoria (6-1-3), the University of the Fraser Valley (5-4-1) and UBC Okanagan (4-5-1).
