EDMONTON – It went the absolute distance, but the University of Calgary Dinos are headed back to the Canada West championship game - and the U SPORTS national championship - after a 0-0 (4-3 PKs) decision against the MacEwan Griffins Friday at Clarke Stadium.
The Griffins saw two of their final three penalty kicks either sail over the crossbar or hit it as the Dinos rallied from an early deficit in the shootout to punch their ticket to the conference gold medal game and U SPORTS national championship.
It's the third time in five years the Dinos will play for the national title.
"We survived," said Dinos head coach
Troye Flannery. "I can't say enough good things about the team that we just played. We knew it would be tough.
"It doesn't feel like a win, it certainly doesn't feel like a loss. It's more of a relief that we get to go to another national championship. That's three in five years and I'm damn proud of that."
It was a devastating result for the homestanding Griffins – hosting a Canada West Final Four for the first time since joining the conference in 2014 – considering they appeared all but on their way after goalkeeper Emily Burns stopped
Kelsey Ellis on the Dinos' first attempt.
But as Calgary's
Sofia Mondaca,
Montana Leonard, Malya Lee and
Amy Mikuska scored, and MacEwan's Suekiana Choucair and Raeghan McCarthy also found the twine, third Griffins shooter Jamie Erickson went high to set up a dramatic final shot. Kristyn Smart had to score for the shootout to continue and instead hit the crossbar.
Both teams had chances to end the game in regulation.
MacEwan's best came in the 77th minute when a laser from Salma Kamel, who broke free down the right side, went bar down but stayed out.
Calgary's best came in the 82nd when
Kelsie MacDonald – who gave the Griffins fits on the left wing all afternoon – sent in a low cross right onto Leonard's boot 10 feet out, but Calgary's leading scorer in the regular season chipped a seemingly sure goal over the bar.
"I thought we played very, very well at times," said Flannery. "We didn't want to be frantic, we didn't want to fight them. We wanted to try to play football, which we did for big chunks of the game. Burnsie robbed us a couple of times. I think we hit the bar, MacEwan hit the bar as well.
"It's two very good teams and you almost feel a little bit guilty going out of here advancing, but we're an old squad, we've got a bunch of fourth years on the field and we managed the emotions for the most part."
MacEwan was under siege for much of the first half, but found their footing in the second and looked like the more dangerous team in overtime. They also had a 42nd-minute goal that was waved off because Erickson was offside before she tapped home a rebound.
Burns made 12 saves for MacEwan, while
Lauren Houghton stopped seven for the Dinos.
The Griffins will meet the Trinity Western/UBC loser in Saturday's semifinal (12 p.m.), while Calgary awaits the winner in the championship match (3 p.m., Clarke Stadium, both games Canada West TV presented by Co-op).
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