A casual observer might look at the U Sports men's soccer scoreboard this past weekend and see the UNBC Timberwolves ended up with two home-turf losses.
But it was anything but a pointless weekend.
In fact, how the T-wolves conducted themselves in those two games against two quality opponents might well be the high-water mark so far in UNBC's short six-year history playing university soccer in the Canada West conference.
They took on the Mount Royal University Cougars Friday night at North Cariboo Fields and despite outshooting the Calgary team 7-2 and outplaying them for long stretches they lost 1-0.
Then on Sunday, the T-wolves hosted the Alberta Golden Bears, the defending national champion, and had them engaged in a 1-1 tie through 66 minutes until the Bears unleashed their hidden weapon, Nikko Cuglietta.
Just back from a knee injury that forced him to miss all but four games of the Bears' national title romp, the third-year forward came off the bench and scored twice, providing the margin of victory in a 3-1 decision which kept the Bears undefeated at 5-0-1.
"These two games weren't our best results but they were our best two performances as a team, hands down," said T-wolves head coach Steve Simonson. "Friday night for sure was about our standards - to come in and be confident and pass the ball well and create enough chances to win, which we did, we just didn't score.
"Today was to show we could play amongst the best team in the country and I think they did that for sure. They're a good team and what wins it for them is they have individual quality all over the place. Not to say we don't, but they have some real top-level players and some of them will go on to make a bit of career in the game. That's what we got undone by and you have to give credit to a top player."
Both teams managed eight shots on goal.
UNBC's smothering defence did its job shutting down Alberta's star striker, Ajeej Sarkaria, who set the Canada West record last year for most goals (19) and points (25) in an 18-game season. He came close, hitting a crossbar in the second half, but didn't get many open looks at the net. That forced the hand of coach Len Vickery, who called in Cuglietta for the second half and put him on the field to generate offence, which he did.
"UNBC is much improved, better-organized, and they knew what we were about but we're able to change things up from time to time and we had to," said Vickery, now in his 33rd season at the helm of Golden Bears.
"Bringing in Nikko was a bit of change, not only for us, but for them because they hadn't seen him. That worked to our advantage today, but all credit to UNBC, they battled."
Cuglietta tucked a low shot in just beyond the goalpost behind diving goalie Ty Venhola for his first goal at 66 minutes and sealed the win at the 84-minute mark, utilizing his speed to catch up to a loose ball he passed to himself trying to get into open territory behind Venhola.
Tofa Fakunle opened the scoring on a penalty kick 12 minutes in, after Alberta goalie Connor James fouled Jonah Smith in the crease. Sebastian Crema tied it for Golden Bears 34 minutes into the first half.
The T-wolves had their chances to add to the count, especially in the first half. Fakunle and Gordon Hall both missed close-range opportunities which came back to haunt UNBC.
"We went toe-to-toe with the national champions," said Fakunle, 21, in his fifth and final season as a UNBC forward. "We had a gameplan and stuck with it and their quality showed - two good goals to win the game. That individual quality they had at key moments was the difference today. Their good players will punish you and that's what happened.
"It's been a good weekend. We got two losses and it feels like we're in a slump right now but we've played two good teams. We're riding high and I'm not too upset. I'm upset at the result but performance-wise, we all put it in, and we're happy with that. We're not out of it at all."
The UNBC men (2-3-3) will be in Alberta this weekend for games against Grant MacEwan and Lethbridge.
In the women's game which followed Sunday at North Cariboo, the Alberta Pandas dominated the UNBC Timberwolves from start to finish and left with a 4-0 victory. Sydney Daines and Karissa McNutt each scored twice and goalie Rebecca Reif had just two saves to make for the shutout.
All four Pandas goals were scored from close range. They fired 10 shots at UNBC goalie Brooke Molby, who suffered her second-straight loss. The 19-year-old from Squamish also played in the T-wolves' 2-0 home-field defeat Friday night to Mount Royal University.
"Alberta is incredibly aggressive as a team and when they win (ball possession) they're obviously very effective going forward and with that level of athletic ability they can be aggressive and cause problems," said T-wolves head coach Neil Sedgwick.
After starting the season with consecutive wins over Thompson Rivers and UBC Okanagan, the T-wolves were reminded they still have plenty of work to do to try to keep pace with teams from the bigger schools.
"I thought we came out strong, we knew these guys would be high competitors and we took this as an opportunity to raise our standards and compete at a high level and keep the tempo up," said UNBC fifth-year midfielder Tianna Pius.
"Alberta plays more direct and so we had to deal with more penetrative balls behind the back line, whereas Mount Royal gave us more opportunities to set because they gave us more side-to-side play (which led to more UNBC scoring chances). We had to adjust to that and we can take that and use it for future games."
The T-wolves (2-2-0) host the Trinity Western Spartans (2-2-0) Friday night, then will get set for another home game Sunday afternoon against Fraser Valley. The Cascades are off to a 1-2-1 start.
