VANCOUVER - The no. 4 Lethbridge Pronghorns shut out the UBC Thunderbirds 33-0 to open the 2011 Canada West women's rugby season in Vancouver.
 

"I thought we dealt physically well with a lot of the challenges that we had today,” said UBC head coach Lesley McKenzie. “We implemented some of the stuff that we’ve been working on but we caved a little bit in other areas to pressure and we didn’t get everything done, which is not surprising in your first league game.”
 

The Pronghorns controlled the ball for most of the match and opened the scoring in the 12th minute.
 

Lethbridge moved the ball out of a scrum in the UBC half of the field and quickly got it to Kayla Moleschi who then passed the ball to winger Paula Woynarowsky  who ran down the left side to score.
 

Seven minutes later, Cassandra Orr broke free from a scrum around the 22-metre line and easily took in Lethbridge's second try of the game.
 

Neither try was converted - leaving the visitors up 10-0.

 

Then the Pronghorns' Laura Murphy-Burke put her stamp on the game.

 

She kicked a penalty goal in the 30th minute before pulling off a magnificent run for another try.

 

Murphy-Burke took one pass out of a scrum and faked out a UBC defender before finding enough room up the left side to score.
 

She converted the try to make the score 20-0 at the half.
 

While UBC didn’t really threaten offensively, it held Lethbridge off the scoreboard for most of the second half, before giving up a penalty goal, and two late, unconverted tries to make the final 33-0.

 

"I’m not overly disheartened because I’ve seen some good stuff and I’ve seen the weak areas and we’ll work on that,” said McKenzie.
 

UBC will have to regroup to play no. 7 Alberta on Sunday afternoon at Wolfson Field at 1:00 p.m.
 

“It will be a test of how well the players can bounce back mentally,” said McKenzie of Sunday’s game. “I don’t imagine they’re going to back down on Sunday.”
 

Lethbridge will play at Victoria on Sunday morning.