CALGARY – The University of Calgary Dinos put together their most complete performance of the season to date with a 20-6 win over the seventh ranked UBC Thunderbirds Saturday afternoon from McMahon Stadium.

Calgary opened the game with a seven-play, 82-yard drive that ended in a Ben Britton 11-yard touchdown catch and led the rest of the way for the win.

"I think the key was that opening drive by the offence – marching the ball down the field and putting points on the board," Calgary head coach Wayne Harris said. "That's something we haven't done yet this year and that's really a credit to the plan the coaches put in this week and the players going out and executing the game plan.

"The special teams were solid for most of the game and then our defence – to keep a team as talented as UBC off the scoreboard as long as we did is very impressive. They had a lot of big stands out there and again the coaches and players worked tremendously hard this past week to get this done." 

The Dinos set the tone right out of the gate, receiving the opening kickoff and methodically marching down the field. Dom Britton went 4-for-4 on the drive for 56 yards and the score to quickly put the home team on top.

Calgary then forced a three-and-out and again scored on their next possession. Starting at midfield, Nick Sua had a nice series on the ground to help set up a 35-yard field goal by Vince Triumbari to make it 10-0 with 6:32 left in the opening quarter.

Triumbari added another 26-yard kick on the opening series of the second quarter to extend the lead to 13-0.

Things remained that way until late in the third quarter when Calgary's offence once again found its rhythm and capped off a 67-yard drive with a two-yard dive by Evan Smith to make it 20-0 with less than a minute left in the third.

From there, UBC started to get things going offensively, but the Dinos continued to come up with a big play to thwart away the threat. 

A drive early in the fourth saw the Thunderbirds get to the Calgary 28 yard line, but a sack by Daniel Flanagan pushed UBC out of field goal range and forced a turnover on downs one play later.

The next drive by UBC saw them slowly move down the field, using nine plays to move 49 yards and again get into scoring range before Jordan Chizda hauled in his second interception of the year to again end the attack.

The Thunderbirds finally got on the board with 18 seconds left to end the shutout as Garrett Rooker connected with Jaden Phillips for a 15-yard score to close out the scoring on the day.

Rooker – missing one of the leading receivers in the country in this one – finished the game going 17-for-31 for 198 yards, one score and one pick. Toluwalope Ayedegbe had a nice game on the ground for UBC, carrying the ball nine times for 64 yards.

Meanwhile, Dom Britton had his best game in his young Dinos career with 181 yards on 16-of-26 passing and one TD. Gob Deng had four catches for 92 yards, while Ben Britton returned from injury and hauled in five passes for 57 yards and the score.

Defensively, Flanagan led all players with eight tackles on the day to go with two sacks. Steen Rasmussen also recorded a key sack in a big showing by the Dinos defence.

Coming into the game averaging well over 500 yards/game, Calgary held UBC to just 295 yards of overall offence - over half of which came in the final quarter.

"Our defence has been really solid all season," Harris said. "We worked on some things during the bye week, but we also got some key guys back from injury that played a big role today.

"This win certainly gives us some motivation going forward. This team has stayed pretty steadfast in their work ethic and their commitment all season. The problem more has been around our execution, and we cleaned up a lot of that execution today."

The loss drops UBC to 4-2 and into a tie for second place in the Canada West standings with two weeks left to play. Regina heads to Vancouver next week for a Saturday afternoon affair from Thunderbird Stadium.

Meanwhile, the Dinos move to 1-5 and now hit the road for the final time this regular season with a trip to Saskatchewan set for Saturday at 4 p.m.

-UC-