CALGARY – The fourth-ranked University of Calgary Dinos capitalized on a number of University of Regina mistakes, taking a 20-7 win over the Rams Friday night at McMahon Stadium.
Calgary came into the contest depleted at receiver, with five of their top six receivers banged up.
Adam Sinagra was still able to throw for 347 yards on 31 completions, which included 13 completions to the lone healthy regular receiver,
Jalen Philpot.
Most of the Dinos' offensive success would come in the first half, as Sinagra was able to orchestrate two touchdown drives. The first was capped off by defensive lineman
J-Min Pelley, who came in on the team's heavy package, and plunged in from the one-yard line.
Regina was able to stop the Dinos on their second touchdown drive, but on the second down stop, they elected to accept a holding penalty in an attempt to drive the Dinos out of field goal range. Sinagra would make them pay, making his best throw of the game to find
Nathanael Durkan down the seam for a 34-yard touchdown.
The Dinos defence was constantly in the face of Regina quarterback Seb Britton, sacking him three times, and causing him to make the majority of throws with defenders right in his face. Britton completed just 13 of 36 passes on the night, including one interception.
Late in the third quarter, the Rams defence did their best to get their team back in the game, as Jaxon Ford intercepted an errant Sinagra throw and took it back for a touchdown. However, the return was negated by an unnecessary roughness penalty, and the Rams offence was unable to capitalize on the ensuing drive.
Calgary was not free from mistakes themselves, as they had a number of special teams errors, and took 12 penalties for a total of 146 yards.
For the third game in a row the Dinos did not allow a defensive touchdown, and head coach
Wayne Harris knows that his defence has been carrying them to their 4-0 start.
"The defence came up big," said the fifth-year bench boss. "We have been depending on them a lot to keep us in games and they certainly did that tonight. The offence was rolling well in the first half, just were unable to capitalize and put up any points, we will have to get better at that as the season progresses."
The Rams, led by surprise starter Britton, managed just 227 yards total offence and were unable to finish drives, with all of their points coming off the foot of kicker Aldo Galvan. Britton finished the night 13-for-36 for 218 yards and one interception, and his top target was Bennett Stusek who picked up 133 yards on just seven catches.
For the Dinos,
Jalen Philpot finished the game with 13 catches for 138 yards, while Durkan added seven catches of his own for 81 yards.
Defensively,
Grant McDonald led the way for Calgary with an outstanding 6.5 tackles, including two tackles for a loss. Ryder Varga's seven tackle, one-sack night paced the Rams defensively.
The Dinos will head on the road next week as they try and keep their undefeated season alive against the Saskatchewan Huskies next Friday night, while the Rams will be in Manitoba taking on the Bisons next Saturday.
-UC-
