LANGLEY, British Columbia – The University of Victoria Vikes women's soccer team were dealt their first loss of the season tonight, Sept. 12, after being ousted 3-1 in Langley, B.C. Trinity Western's Vanessa Kovacs (North Delta, B.C.) scored twice in the last five minutes of the opening half to spark the CIS No. 2 Spartans to the win and ultimately leave the Vikes now at a 0-2-1 record, while the Spartans are 1-1.
 
Kovacs scored in the 40th and 45th minutes before first-year Brooklyn Tidder (White Rock, B.C.) rounded out the Spartans goal output with her first in a TWU uniform in the 63rd minute. The Vikes Emma Greig scored in the 82nd minute to give Victoria its first of the season, but that was all the offence the visitors could muster.
 
The victory puts the Spartans (1-1) in the win column for the first time this year and also saw TWU score its first two goals of the year. The Vikes (0-2-1) leave Langley having finally hit the scoreboard, after being shutout in back-to-back contest to start the season, but still in search of their first win.
 
Spartans keeper Ally Williamson (Langley) earned her first victory in a TWU uniform, making five saves on six shots. Victoria goalie Meaghan Storie stopped seven of the 10 shots she faced. 
 
After the Spartans saw their 15-match home winning streak come to an end Friday, the Saturday's win curbed what would have been a potentially historic two-game losing streak. Since entering the CIS in 2001, only once, in 2003, has TWU opened a season with consecutive losses.
 
After near-misses by both Seina Kashima (Burnaby, B.C.) and Isabella Di Trocchio (Burnaby) early on in the opening stanza, Kovacs finally broke through with five minutes to spare in the first half. After initially putting a header off the crossbar, the fifth-year midfielder jumped right back up to head home the rebound.
 
Then, just before the halftime whistle, Kovacs got on the board again, when she once again got her head to a deft corner and found the back of the net.  
 
Less than 20 minutes into the second half, Tidder put the game out of question when she struck from the left side of the box and found the low right corner.
 
In the 83rd minute, the Vikes finally ended their season-long scoring drought when Greig capitalized on a TWU turnover, walked in alone and whipped an effort to the bottom left corner past Williamson.
 
 
The Spartans will now prepare to travel to play UBC Okanagan Sept. 18 and Thompson Rivers Sept. 19.
 
Victoria will return home to host UNBC Sept. 18 and Alberta Sept. 19.
 
Game Notes: The Spartans have only lost one regular season game in each of the last four years…it took Victoria 263 minutes to score its first goal of the 2015 season….Kovacs was shown a yellow card in the 86th minute.