Adam Sinagra leads Calgary Dinos to Vanier Cup championship in final U Sports game

QUEBEC — Fourth-year quarterback Adam Sinagra led the Calgary Dinos to a 27-13 win over the Montreal Carabins for the Vanier Cup on Saturday.

Sinagra, a native Chateauguay, Que., completed 22-of-28 passes for 292 yards and two touchdowns in his final U Sports game to help Calgary win its first Canadian university football championship in 24 years.

The victory marked the fifth Vanier Cup for the Dinos in school history. They had last won in 1995, when they beat the Western Mustangs in Toronto.

Calgary took a 20-10 lead early in the fourth quarter Saturday when Hunter Karl caught a nine-yard pass from Sinagra, completing a 10-play, 87-yard drive.

The Dinos added a late TD in the final minute of the game on a Robinson Rodrigues one-yard run.

Calgary opened the scoring with a pair of field goals from Nick DiFonte — from 22 and 38 yards — to take a 6-0 lead in the second quarter.

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The Carabins briefly pulled ahead, scoring the game’s first touchdown on a one-yard run from Reda Maki late in the second quarter. The score was helped by a faked field goal during the drive.

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The Dinos responded quickly with a touchdown of their own when Sinagra reached Jalen Philpot in the end zone on a 13-yard pass, giving Calgary a 13-7 lead at half time.

Karl extended Calgary’s lead to 20-7 with his TD in the fourth, before a pair of field goals by Montreal’s Louis-Philippe Simoneau from 27 and 16 yards cut the Carabins’ deficit to 20-13.

The Dinos suffered a serious blow on defence when linebacker Charlie Moore was injured on the second offensive play of the game. Moore went down after he tackled running back Ryth-Jean Giraud. Moore got back up after a few minutes but did not return to the game.

Later, it was the Carabins defence that was hit hard when linebacker Jean-Philippe Levesque and defensive back Marc-Antoine Dequoy exited the game with injuries.

It was the first-ever game between the Dinos and the Carabins.

The game was played in front of 8376 fans at Telus Stadium, on the campus of Laval University.

Calgary’s last appearance in a Vanier Cup before Saturday was in 2016, when it lost to Laval on the same field.