CALGARY -  Late-game heroics by freshman Beth Vinnell sparked the No. 10 University of Calgary Dinos to a five-set upset victory over the No. 1 University of Alberta Pandas Friday night in Calgary's Jack Simpson Gym.

The Dinos came back from a two sets to one deficit to push the match to five and, ultimately, emerge on the winning side with a 3-2 victory (25-18, 25-27, 19-25, 25-21, 15-9). With the win, Calgary improves to 4-3 while Alberta drops to 5-2 with the setback.

Vinnell, who subbed in late in the third set, was virtually unstoppable during her time on the floor. The freshman from Cochrane, Alta. picked up nine kills and no errors on 11 attempts, hitting nearly 82 per cent to lead the Dinos to victory. She was especially crucial in the late stages of the fourth set, scoring the kill that broke an 18-18 tie, recording a block, and then picking up the Dinos' last two points of the set to take it 25-21.

"What a great start for a little first year coming off of knee surgery," said Calgary head coach Natalie Gurnsey. "I couldn't be more pleased with the work that she did, not just offensively, but at the net blocking.

"The whole game was a battle for us to actually run our game plan," Gurnsey went on. "When we ran it, we were successful against them. We struggled for streaks in passing, but we got it together and finally got some momentum and could run the offence that we wanted to."

Alberta embarked on several serving runs throughout the night, getting the Dinos in tough passing rotations and capitalizing on their opportunities. Two of those came with Josephine Doerfler and Kacey Otto behind the service line in the second set, while Meg Casault proved extremely difficult to contain through much of the third set – and both of those sets went to Alberta.

After going on that run late in the fourth set, however, the Dinos carried their momentum into the fifth and raced out to a 4-0 lead. Calgary led 8-4 at the switch, and after a couple of Jaylynn Moffatt kills, she and Jordhynn Guy combined to stuff Otto on the final play of the match to wrap it up in the hosts' favour.

Kate Pexman continued her find play, picking up 16 kills and adding 14 digs for the Dinos. Calgary also got solid contributions from Janna Ogle with 15 kills and 10 digs, while Moffatt picked up 13 kills to go with five blocks on the night.

Casault got by far the most volume for the Pandas, picking up 23 kills on 57 swings to go with 14 digs on the night. Dione Lang's 13 kills and Doerfler's 10 represented the only other Pandas to hit double digits in the category. Calgary won the kill efficiency battle by a relatively large margin, considering the score: the Dinos hit 24 per cent on the night, while Alberta managed just 17.

The two teams renew hostilities Saturday night in the rematch, with first serve slated for 5 p.m. MT.

"Especially with such a young team, every time we win it builds our confidence," said Gurnsey. "The biggest thing we have to worry about is getting comfortable – every night is fresh in Canada West, and it's really difficult to get a sweep against anyone – especially a great team like Alberta. We start from square one again tomorrow."

-UC-