Heat women's soccer couldn't make Maddy Laranjo's early goal standup and fall to the home Vikes (3-1) Saturday night.

Image Credit: Contributed/UBC

KELOWNA - After a tough battle on Centennial field in Victoria, the UBC Okanagan women’s soccer team fell (3-1) against the University of Victoria Vike's this Saturday night.

With the loss the Kelowna squad's record drops to (2-6) and keeps them in the sixth place standing in the Pacific West division while upping the Vikes record to (5-1-3) and placing them second in the division.

Fifth-years Mia Gunter and Sarah Douglas scored for the Vikes with Natalie Cavallin also scoring in just her second game of the season. Maddy Laranjo scored the lone goal for the UBCO Heat.

First year Laranjo opened the scoring in the 18th minute. A pass into the box was deflected by a Vike’s defender and the ball fell perfectly to Laranjo, who fired a shot past Meaghan Storie and into the Vikes net.

The game was a contrast in styles. UBCO played the ball short and tried to retain possession whenever they could. The Vikes meanwhile, pressed high up the field to put pressure on the UBCO back line.

"You have to give UBCO credit, the first 25 minutes they outplayed us for sure. It took us a little bit of time to regroup and get our game back," said Vikes head coach Tracy David

For Laranjo, the Thompson Okanagan Football Club product, this was her first ever Canada West goal and for the Heat this ended a long scoring drought.

In the 37th minute Mia Gunter got the Vikes back into the game when she took a pass from Sarah Douglas about 25 yards away from goal and unleashed a beautiful shot that curled over Chloe Ainsworth in the Heat net and found the top right corner.

The rest of the first half was all Vikes. Although they weren't able to score a goal, they turned up the pressure on UBCO.

The Vikes took the lead early in the second half.  Taking inspiration from her teammate, Douglas let a shot go from well outside the 18-yard box that sailed over the head of Ainsworth.

The goal was an exclamation point on a brilliant weekend for Douglas. She recorded two goals and three assists in the two Vikes victories.

"I thought today she (Douglas) kind of took the game by the horns and turned it around a little bit in the second half," said David.

The Vikes added an insurance marker in the 70th minute.

Douglas whipped in a corner kick that Cavallin headed into the net for her first goal of the season. The goal was the third set-piece goal of the weekend for the Vikes.

The Heat were tenacious in trying to even the contest, throughout the match third year Courtney Hemmerling had a number of chances to score, forcing Vikes keeper Meaghan Storie to stop five shots in the 20th, 29th, 47th, 56th, and 80th minute.

Although Hemmerling was unable to score in either of this past weekends' matches on both night's the third year fired five shots, she now totals 28 shots so far this season putting her fifth in the Canada West.

As this weekend of play comes to an end the Heat will continue their second half of the season with a split weekend at home and on the road against the Thompson River WolfPack. The first game of the series will be played on Thursday (Oct. 6) at 6 p.m. at Hillside Stadium in Kamloops. Followed by a second match on Saturday (Oct. 8) at the Nonis Sports Field in Kelowna with a start time of 1 p.m.

The Victoria Vikes will be looking to maintain their second place standing as they will head on the road to play UBC at Thunderbird Stadium on Oct. 8 with a start time of 5 p.m.

- Tia Sadler, UBC Okanagan Heat, with notes from Cameron Doherty, Vikes Communications

News from © iNFOnews, 2016