CALGARY – The No. 10 UBC Thunderbirds were handed their first loss of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport football season in dramatic fashion, dropping a 30-25 decision to the fourth-ranked Calgary Dinos.
 
For the second consecutive week, the Dinos squeaked out a come-from-behind victory. Down 25-24 to UBC with just under three minutes left in the game, Calgary drove 85 yards for the winning touchdown. Eighty of those yards came from running back Steven Lumbala, who finished the drive with a nine-yard touchdown run with just 18 seconds to go.  In total, the third year player recorded 204 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
 
The upstart Thunderbirds were looking for a second straight, road win over a ranked team. It looked like it might happen after they scored 14 straight points after going down 24-11 on Lumbala's first touchdown at 11:23 of the third quarter.
 
With less than five minutes gone in the fourth quarter, UBC completed a nine-play, 75-yard drive when quarterback Billy Greene (Surrey, B.C.) found Ryan Couper (London, Ont.) with an 18-yard touchdown pass. That got UBC to within six points after the convert from kicker Billy Pavlopoulos (Georgetown, Ont.). Greene completed 29 out of 43 passes for 255 yards and three touchdowns on the night. He also rushed for 102 yards.
 
Greene's 53-yard throw to Jordan Grieve (Salmon Arm, B.C.) put UBC ahead by one with just 2:38 left in the game.

"Tonight's game was a great battle that unfortunately we came out on the short end of," said Greene. "On offence we came out firing in the first quarter but stalled too much at key times. We showed a lot of heart battling back and came up big when things weren't looking too good. Calgary played an amazing game and they made plays when they had to. We will learn from this loss and come back better next week and ready to go."
 
The two teams were tied going into halftime after trading field goals in the opening quarter, and then touchdowns in the second. Running back Dave Boyd (Duncan, B.C.) scored on a six-yard pass from Greene with about five minutes left in the half to even the score at 10-10.
 
Defensively, UBC was led by rookie Adam Konar (North Vancouver, B.C.), who had six tackles.
 
But the defence also gave up 351 rushing yards, including 204 to Lumbala and 111 to Anthony Woodson.
 
Calgary quarterback Eric Dzwilewski threw for 212 yards and one touchdown.
 
UBC's record is now 1-1 and will finally host its first home game in 2011 on September 17 when it entertains the Alberta Golden Bears at Thunderbird Stadium.

The game starts at 2 p.m. and can also be heard live on CiTR 101.9 FM.

Calgary is now 2-0 and will travel to Regina for its next game.