BOX SCORE EDMONTON – Although the Alberta Pandas fought back twice to tie the game in the final period Hayley Wickenheiser scored with 10.0 seconds left on the clock to give the No. 2 University of Calgary Dinos a thrilling 4-3 victory, Friday night at Clare Drake Arena.
 
The 2010-11 CIS Player of the Year netted two points on the night, as did third-year forwards Jenna Smith (one goal, one assist) and Iya Gavrilova (two assists). The 19-3-1 Dinos also got singles from sophomore rearguard Stephanie Zvonkovic and fourth-year forward Erika Mitschke.
 
Scoring tallies for the 15-7-1 Pandas were team captain and leading scorer, Karla Bourke, sophomore forward Tess Houston, and rookie defender Hannah Mousek.

The win gives the defending national champion Dinos an eight-point cushion atop the Canada West standings with five games to play as Calgary inches closer to a second consecutive regular season pennant.
 
Both teams playing a conservative style of hockey in the opening 20 minutes, the Dinos pounced on their first big opportunity to start the second, quickly capitalizing on a long five-on-three man-advantage. Wickenheiser's shot off the crossbar put Alberta netminder Michala Jeffries out of position, leaving Smith a wide-open net to open the scoring at 0:30 of the middle frame.
 
From that point on, a raucous crowd filled with several junior women's hockey teams, many Pandas hockey alumni, and a large number of current Golden Bear football players, during a fundraiser game for Ovarian Cancer Canada, raised the energy of the building, getting the two nationally ranked squads to trade chances time and time again.
 
Backhands right across the Calgary goalmouth by Bourke and freshman forward Jessica Kampjes were inches away from tying the game, but fourth-year goaltender Amanda Tapp kept her outstretched pads flat to keep the puck from crossing the line.
 
The conference leader in goals against average then dove across the Dino net to snag a sure-fire tally away from sophomore Janelle Froehler.
 
Calgary replied with Edmonton native Calaine Inglis' chance right at the side of the Alberta goal with a wide-open net, only to fan on the shot and hit the outside of the post, yet Zvonkovic, on a point shot that snuck under Jeffries' pad, doubled the Dino lead at 13:52.
 
The Pandas cut the deficit to one at 16:04, however, Kampjes throwing a backhand pass back to the open side to the right of the Calgary net, Bourke depositing the puck into the open cage for her ninth of the season and fifth on the power-play.
 
Mousek, hailing from Olds, Alta., evened the score at 6:21 of the third when she sifted a backhand on the rush through Tapp's five-hole to the far side, garnering huge jubilation from the hometown crowd.
 
Only 39 seconds later, though, the Dinos regained the lead off an offensive zone faceoff, Mitschke putting a quick wrister on net that eluded Jeffries, but 37 seconds after that, a Katie Stewart wrister from the right faceoff dot in the Calgary zone bounced off Tapp right to Houston, who buried the rebound for her first of the season and knotted the game at three.
 
The Dinos and Pandas went back and forth for the rest of the period, the best chance coming off a Kirsten Toth point shot, the home team athlete ringing one off the crossbar with eight minutes left to go.
 
Overtime seemed almost inevitable in the final minute, but on a late four-on-three rush, Wickenheiser, from the top of the circle, sniped a shot over Jeffries' glove to give the road team their second-straight one-goal victory against Alberta this season.
 
Calgary finished the game at 1-5 on the man-advantage while the Pandas went 2-7.
 
The two teams renew hostilities in an afternoon affair on Saturday, puck drop going at 2 o.m.

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