UCalgary Dinos Communications

CALGARY – On the day they honoured five graduating seniors, the University of Calgary Dinos pushed their winning streak to 11 games with a 4-0 defeat of the MacEwan University Griffins Sunday at the West Varsity Soccer Pitch.

Montana Leonard scored twice while Lauren Houghton picked up an astounding 10th shutout on the year as the Dinos put six points between themselves and the second-place Alberta Pandas in the race for first place in Canada West's Prairie Division. Calgary improves to 11-1-0, while MacEwan drops to 8-3-1, solidly in third place in the Pacific Division.

"It was an exceptional performance, our best of the season I think," said Dinos Head Coach Troye Flannery. "MacEwan is a good team, but we were assertive and came out dialled in."

Montana Leonard's penalty kick in the first 10 minutes of the game was the first of four goals for the Dinos. Maddison Fritze scored the second goal of the game in the 25th minute, pushing the score to 2-0 at the half.

The Dinos' third came in the second half courtesy Sienna Prince-McPherson, scoring her second of the weekend and joining Leonard and Fritze with goals in both games. Leonard finished it off in stoppage time late as the Dinos put up their 10th clean sheet in the 11-game win streak, a span in which they have allowed just one goal.

Houghton made three saves for the shutout, while the Dinos peppered the MacEwan goal with 18 shots to and nine on, snapping MacEwan's three-game win streak and handing the Griffins just their third loss on the season.

Post-game the Dinos paid tribute to a quintet of graduating seniors after the final regular season home game of their U SPORTS careers. Jordan Smith, Natalie Arnett, Maddison Fritze, Kayla Kreutzer, and Zoe Kreutzer each received a framed jersey and flowers from Flannery.

"We graduate five legitimate program changers on the field, in the classroom, and in the community," said the six-year head coach. "I thought the team rallied around the emotion of the day, and it was a fun day here today."

The regular season wraps up next weekend as the Dinos visit Mount Royal and Alberta, needing just one point in those two games to clinch first place. The Dinos have already confirmed hosting duties for the first round of the playoffs, which will go Oct. 26-28 at McMahon Stadium.

MacEwan finishes off the campaign with home games against Thompson Rivers and UBC Okanagan in Edmonton next week.

-UC-

Photo by David Moll