The first half of the year has run the gamut from championships to coach firings. Which teams are worthy of praise and which ones would we just as soon try and forget about? Let’s take a look back at the past three months to find out:

Is This Just Fantasy?

Women’s Field Hockey: A 21st conference championship and a 12th national championship, capped off with a 6–0 victory in the gold medal game is about as good as it gets for a UBC Varsity team.

Women’s Volleyball: How do you improve after you win your second straight CIS Championship? You win your first nine games of the regular season, win 27 of 29 sets, and become the consensus choice in the country to win a third straight championship.

Men’s Basketball: Speaking of teams with perfect starts to their seasons…the T-Birds have begun their regular season 9–0, and are ranked No. 1 in the country. Josh Whyte leads the team in points, assists and steals, while Nathan Yu is averaging 14.1 points per game in just over 20 minutes of action.

Easy Come, Easy Go

Women’s Soccer: After a very slow start to the season (just two wins in their first eight games), the T-Birds rebounded by winning 9 of their last 11 games, eventually pulling out a bronze medal victory for a talented group that included five graduating seniors.

Women’s Hockey: Last year, with 14 rookies on the squad, the ‘Birds struggled. After a rough start to this season, they’ve won four straight games to put themselves back in the playoff race. Led by Tamara Pickford (12 points in 12 games), UBC is finally getting the sort of consistent offence needed to compete in the Canada West Conference.

Men’s Soccer: A solid regular season that saw them finish in the first place in conference play was spoiled with just one bad game. Unfortunately, it came in the do-or-die conference semifinal against Alberta, knocking UBC quickly out of the playoffs, and wondering what went wrong.

Women’s Basketball: Thus far, they’ve shown they can compete with any team in the country, leading No. 1 SFU in the fourth quarter and defeating two other top ten-ranked teams. With all three of their losses coming by less than eight points, this young team could be a national contender sooner than originally thought.no escape from reality

No Escape From Reality

Men’s Volleyball: With stars Steve Gotch and Jared Krause departing the program, it was expected that UBC would struggle this season. However, a 1–7 start to the season has all but eliminated them from playoff contention before 2010 even begins. Definitely a disappointment.

Men’s Hockey: UBC won three of its first four games of the year, was ranked in the top ten nationally, and looked on their way to having their best season in recent memory…and then it all went downhill. With just two wins in their last 12 games, UBC now sits eight points out of a playoff spot with just a dozen regular season games to go. Spotty goaltending (averaging 4.2 goals allowed per game) has kept the ‘Birds grounded for most of the year.

Men’s Football: They lost their top two receivers before the regular season began. They lost their top cornerback to a season ending injury in the first quarter of the first game. They lost their final six games of the year. And eventually, they lost their coach. With just one “real” win in eight games (two wins came from retroactive forfeit on a technacality), it’s safe to say whoever replaces recently fired Ted Goveia as UBC head coach will be facing an uphill battle.