By the time the 2020 fall GNAC season begins at Simon Fraser University, the grass berm along one side of Terry Fox Field will be turned into a covered seating area as part of an 18-month project which will provide seating for almost 2,000 for Clan football, soccer, and track and field. (Photo courtesy Simon Fraser athletics)
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SFU Stadium Project: Finally, a green light! Shovels set to break Burnaby Mountain soil in January for 18-month project

BURNABY — It’s a project whose flashing green-light past has too often gotten stuck on extended periods of solid amber. But now, the long-anticipated Simon Fraser University Stadium Project has been placed on an official 18-month timeline with shovels set to break into the Burnaby Mountain soil in January.

With her Spartans' teammates Aliya Coy (centre) and Kat Chin (8) at her side, Trinity Western's U Sports Player of the Year Seina Kashima shows her emotion after scoring the goal which knotted the national final against host Ottawa at 1-1. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of TWU athletics)
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TWU women’s soccer: Plethora of early chances go unanswered, Spartans drop a U Sports title-tilt heartbreaker to Gee-Gees

The Trinity Western Spartans needed 11th-hour heroics in the nation’s capital the day before just to book safe passage to Sunday’s 2018 U Sports national women’s soccer championship final game. Yet in sharp contrast, when the Remembrance Day title tilt kicked off against the host Gee-Gees on the campus of the University of Ottawa, Langley’s Spartans […]

Pitt Meadows native Sam Kell will try to help her Douglas College Royals win a CCAA national title this week in Coquitlam. (Photo courtesy Douglas College athletics)
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The Renaissance Royal: How Sam Kell helped CCAA soccer tourney host Douglas College finds its national mojo

NEW WESTMINSTER — She arrived at a time when the Douglas College Royals women’s soccer program didn’t even know what a national identity was.

Aliya Coy has been a stalwart along the Spartans' back-line for both of her two seasons with the Spartans. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of TWU athletics)
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Canada West Final Four at TWU: After putting soccer first on her menu, Spartans’ Aliya Coy finds a new joy for the game

LANGLEY — There is an old saying about how we are all essentially defined by our own unique ingredients. Aliya Coy thought she had a pretty solid grasp of that concept when she graduated from Calgary’s Centennial High back in the spring of 2017.

Simon Fraser senior Jenna-lee Baxter symbolized the turnaround of Clan women's soccer this week by being named the GNAC's Player of the Year. (Photo property of Simon Fraser Clan athletics)
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Coach Annie Hamel on re-birth of Simon Fraser Clan women’s soccer: “…they bought in when I had nothing to offer but a vision”

BURNABY — There were only a handful of other places within the NCAA world from which Annie Hamel could have travelled further just to arrive at her posting as the new head coach of Simon Fraser Clan women’s soccer back in the spring of 2014.

Seina Kashima (9) has made her run to the front of pack among Canada West seniors, leading her Trinity Western Spartans to a 9-1-0 record. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca)
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Just call her Super Seina: Over five seasons, Trinity Western’s Kashima has perfected the gift of giving

LANGLEY — Ask Seina Kashima about it, and she can’t help but label it a re-invention of her soccer brain. Makes sense. Prodigious scorer with the Whitecaps girls elite REX program joins the nation’s most decorated women’s program since the turn of the century, and over her five-year career with the Trinity Western Spartans turns into the […]

North Delta native Brittney Zacharuk has becoming a leading force in her fourth season with Abbotsford's Fraser Valley Cascades. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of UFV athletics)
Feature University Women's Soccer

UFV’s Brittney Zacharuk: Cascades’ captain combines nails and glue as catalyst for Canada West consistency

ABBOTSFORD — Toughness and togetherness are a pair of attributes celebrated within the culture of one of the youngest U Sports women’s soccer teams in the nation.

SFU's Dana Robillard (19, left) cuts a quick path to celebrate with fellow freshman Teagan MacKay, whose first-ever GNAC goal capped the Clan's 4-1 win Saturday over Western Oregon at Terry Fox Field. Bookending MacKay (from left) are Jenna-lee Baxter and Gabrielle Brissette. (Photo by Paul Yates property of SFU athletics)
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SFU women’s soccer: Baxter-Pringle partnership shows its vintage as Clan opens GNAC campaign in convincing fashion

BURNABY — Jenna-lee Baxter set the tone early, then helped to control it the rest of the way, as the Simon Fraser Clan opened the Great Northwest Athletic Conference season with a dominant performance in a 4-1 win over the Western Oregon Wolves on Saturday at Terry Fox Field.

Trinity Western senior keeper Rachel Sydor enters her fifth-and-final Canada West season by ascending to a starter's role as the Spartans open Canada West play Friday at home to the Victoria Vikes. (Photo by Scott Stewart property of TWU athletics)
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Rachel Sydor: Four years a Spartan understudy, Trinity Western keeper rises to starting role on nation’s No. 4-ranked team

LANGLEY — Win five national titles over a span of 10 years, like the Trinity Western Spartans’ women’s soccer program did from 2004-13, and you’re not only able to recruit great players into the team, you’re able to create some of the most competitive positional battles imaginable.

UBC's Liesanne Musico (right) and the rest of the Thunderbirds dropped a 3-2 decision to the visiting Western Washington Vikings on Thursday at Dhillon Field. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of UBC athletics)
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UBC women’s soccer 2018: ‘Birds tackle challenging early slate of NCAA foes in search of the new identity

VANCOUVER — It was a week-long, season-opening boot camp from hell, scheduled to test their mettle, reveal their character and start to define their new identity as a soccer team.It’s a process that can’t be avoided when you graduate a pair of attacking phenoms — Jasmin Dhanda and Aman Shergill — who accounted for fully 62 […]