CALGARY – Courtney Duggan's buzzer-beater in the 68th minute gave the Calgary Dinos a 1-0 win and a weekend sweep of the Alberta Pandas Sunday afternoon in Canada west field hockey action.

Duggan scored the lone goal of the game on a well-executed short corner play as time ticked down, beating Alberta goaltender Tory Spencer low to give the Dinos the victory and vault them past the Pandas into second place in the Canada West standings with one weekend left in the season.

Despite the loss, the Pandas qualified for the CIS championship earlier in the afternoon thanks to Victoria's 1-1 draw with UBC. The Pandas will join the UBC Thunderbirds and the host Dinos as the three Canada West representatives at the national tournament at Hawkings Field Nov. 3-6.

“We didn't execute the game plan, we let them muck things up a little rather than using our skill and our speed,” said Dinos head coach Jenn Swagar. “But we were able to battle through it, and we'll correct that going forward.”

The Dinos close out the season next week at Victoria, while the Pandas also head west to take on the conference-leading UBC Thunderbirds next weekend.

Calgary netminder Stephanie Petrowitsch had a bounce-back weekend after allowing six goals in two games last week against UBC, shutting out the Pandas in both games this weekend. Petrowitsch made a couple of remarkable saves to preserve the victory, including a nice stop on a high shot off an Alberta short corner in the first half. Her best stop, however, came in the dying seconds as the Pandas pressed hard after the Calgary goal. An Alberta rush resulted in a close-in opportunity, but a sprawling Petrowitsch was able to direct it away from the net and it bounced harmlessly away.

“I thought her performance last week against UBC was a little flat and her confidence had gone down, so we spent a lot of time working on that this week,” said Swagar. “She came out with aggression and control, and she was stellar today and made that big save at the end for us.”

Calgary improves to 4-3-3 on the year, five points behind UBC for top spot in the race for the Canada West title. The Dinos will need to win both games over the Vikes, and hope the Pandas can sweep UBC, to have a chance at the conference title. Alberta drops to 4-4-2 with the loss.

GOAL SCORER
CGY - Courtney Duggan 68' (PC)

GOALKEEPERS
ALTA - Tory Spencer 70 MP, 1 GA
CGY - Steph Petrowitsch 70 MP, 0 GA

-UC-