Brynn Hobal celebrates her goal with Anneke Odinga in the first half on Sunday (Norman Bo photo).
Brynn Hobal celebrates her goal with Anneke Odinga in the first half on Sunday (Norman Bo photo).
September 21, 2025

Thrilling roller-coaster match between Canada West titans MacEwan and Calgary ends in a 3-3 draw

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Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON – Two of the top teams in Canada West took fans on an emotional roller-coaster ride Sunday in a thrilling division rivalry battle between MacEwan and Calgary at Clarke Stadium that ended in a 3-3 draw.

Calgary had an early lead. 

MacEwan struck back and took control, up 2-1 for almost 20 minutes in the second half.

Then, if you blinked you would have missed it – Dinos' Kaleigh Major scored twice in a one minute, 24 second span to put the visitors up 3-2.

But, just as it seemed like MacEwan would become the eighth-straight opponent to fall to Calgary this season, second-half sub Nikki Brodeur tied the game again in the 86th minute for the final result.

"Wow, you don't see that day," said Griffins head coach Dean Cordeiro. "A game that seemed in complete control can slip away. That's Calgary. They're number four in the country for a reason. We had them for good spells of the game today. We were in the lead.

"I think it would have been devastating if we never got any points today because of how well we played," he added. "But it's always a good battle against them. Nothing but respect for them. Diogo (Raposo, the Dinos bench boss, who was once Cordeiro's assistant coach) does a great job and that's a great team. We hope we're going to see them later on in the season again."

MacEwan becomes the first team so far this season to get a result against Calgary (7-0-1), improving to 5-2-1 on the campaign. 

With Mount Royal beating Alberta 2-0 across town – after losing 3-2 to MacEwan on Saturday – the Griffins are now three points behind them for second place in the Prairie Division. But the Cougars (6-1-1) have not yet faced Calgary this season, so the door is still open for MacEwan to overtake them for a home playoff berth.

On Sunday at Clarke, Sophie Lavallee thought she'd given the Griffins a 1-0 lead just three minutes in the match when she hit the mesh on a point-blank shot from inside the box, but the ball came right back out and officials thought the ball hit the post and called it off. Tough break for the Griffins as video shows it going into the net and bouncing out off the tire.

Calgary officially opened the scoring in the 24th minute when former Griffin Sofia DiGiacomo headed home an Aislin Phillips back-post corner kick. That's often been enough for the stingy Dinos, who previously beat MacEwan 1-0 earlier this month in Calgary on a similar early goal.

But the Griffins had more jam this time, playing their hearts out all day, no more personified than by Brynn Hobal tying the game in the 35th minute by scoring with her stomach on a rebound off Anneke Odinga's initial shot.

MacEwan pressed Calgary in the second half and were rewarded with the go-ahead goal in the 61st as Alyx Henderson sent in a brilliant cross that Raeghan McCarthy ran onto and ripped past Dinos keeper Anna Demarbre. It was Henderson's Canada West-leading fifth assist on the campaign.

"What a ball by Alyx Henderson, who was our player of the game," said Cordeiro. "That ball she played in to Rae, are you kidding me? The ball she played yesterday to Sophie? Next level. That's why she's not just a prolific goal scorer, she also provides great service. It's awesome she's leading the conference in assists."

McCarthy's goal would have been her program record-tying 11th career game-winner if it stood up, but the Dinos had other ideas. Major scored twice in the 80th and 82nd minutes on almost identical plays – a clearance of crosses by MacEwan that went right to her instead of away.

"Kaleigh Major finds two balls on clearances I think we would like to be a little bit better on," said Cordeiro. "But look how small the margins are. She finds the ball, and she puts it in the back of the net with relative ease. 

"We could have been like 'it's not our day, everything's against us.' But this team has so much fight. You saw that two days in a row. Today, again, we were resilient, we stayed with it, we got game changers in. They lifted us and got us back level."

In the 86th minute, rookie Kalia Bzeta – just subbed into the match in the 83rd – played in Brodeur with a nifty seam pass and the veteran made no mistake on a breakaway.

"We had a feeling as the game flipped on us there," said Cordeiro. "In that span, we needed some fresh legs. What an opportunity. Kal comes in and slips a great ball to Nikki Brodeur. Both of those two were asking more of us staff to get out there and do what they do. They got the opportunity, and they scored a massive goal for us."

Sabrina Alexander finished with six saves for MacEwan, while Demarbre had three saves for Calgary. Both teams had 19 shots.

Next up for MacEwan is a road trip to face Saskatchewan and Regina Sept. 27-28.