Rams win over Calgary Dinos with last-second hit

The University of Regina Rams are now in first place in the Canada West standings after a win on Friday night at Mosaic Stadium.

The no. 2-ranked and previously unbeaten Calgary Dinos were rocked off their throne as Regina’s Joey Dwyer forced a turnaround with only seconds remaining, sealing a 32-27 win for the Rams.

“When these guys start to believe, they can accomplish just about anything and we saw that out there tonight,” said Rams head coach Steve Bryce. “We didn’t even play a full four quarters of football tonight, so I’m really excited to see what these guys can do when we finally put it together for all 60 minutes.”

Just minutes earlier, Kelton Bailey ran a 36-yard touchdown for the Dinos and it looked like Calgary was going to complete a comeback with the game-winning touchdown.

In addition to his game-winning forced fumble, Dwyer was in on a team-leading 14 tackles.

Mitchell Picton collected 13 passes for 215 yards and caught three touchdowns in the second half in a span of under 14 minutes. Riley Wilson caught five passes for a total of 124 yards and Ryan Schienbein had three catches for 87 yards. Noah Picton finished with 452 yards and four touchdown passes.

Defensive lineman Nicholas Dheilly made his first start for the Rams and joined Sran Van Sichem and Michael Stefanovic as the only Rams ever to collect three sacks in one CIS game.

The Calgary Dinos were leading 11-0 after the opening 15 minutes with 164 yards of offence, 167 more than the Rams who only ran six plays in the first quarter and had -3 yards to show for it.

With just over a minute to go before the half, the Rams added a late safety to make it 14-9 at the break and caught up in the third.

The first lead of the game for the Rams came in the second half, with the Pictons scoring a 13-yard touchdown reception after a 52-yard completion. The Rams were at 18-14 a few minutes later thanks to a field goal from Daniel Scraper.

Early in the fourth quarter, Picton put the Rams up 32-17 with his third touchdown catch, which was a 58-yard connection.

A 34-yard field goal by DiFonte got the Dinos to within 12, which lef to Bailey’s touchdown and Dwyer’s hit.

The Rams (3-1) will play the next game against the Huskies at the new Mosaic Stadium Oct.1 in the SaskTel Fall Classic.