Colorado came home from Michigan 3-1-1 after a scoreless draw at Western Michigan. The coaches poll dropped the Buffs 12 spots. Top Drawer Soccer has them ninth.
BOULDER — Colorado was three goals down and 57 minutes into a wet Sunday morning at DeMartin Stadium when Reagan Kotschau took a Lexi Meyer pass at the top of the box and finished it. Nineteen minutes later, Hope Leyba ran onto a cross from her sister Faith and made it 3-2 with 13 minutes left.
Michigan State survived. That’s the result, and it’s the one that goes in the book.
Two days later the United Soccer Coaches poll moved Colorado from 12th to 24th. Top Drawer Soccer, weighing the same two matches, put the Buffs ninth. Fifteen places between two polls looking at one week of soccer.
The Buffs went 3-1-1 and got treated like they lost twice.
The draw is the real blemish
Start with the part that hurts. Colorado went to Kalamazoo on Aug. 27, played Western Michigan for the first time in the programs’ history, outshot the Broncos 12-8 with seven on target to three, and came home with nothing. Brooke Goerish made her first collegiate start and kept two shots out in the first half. Jamie Campbell took over after the break and, with the clock inside 15 seconds, pushed away a header off a Western Michigan corner that was headed into the bottom right corner.
A 0-0 draw at a MAC school is not a résumé line. Danny Sanchez said as much afterward, crediting the Broncos for defending well and limiting the quality chances.
That same Thursday, in the same state, Michigan State drew 0-0 with Eastern Michigan at home. The Spartans were ranked third in the country. They had beaten North Carolina on the road four days earlier. They still couldn’t score against a MAC team, and nobody wrote them out of the top five for it.
The half that should have counted
Colorado’s first half in East Lansing wasn’t good. A cross from Faith George turned into an own goal in the 21st minute. Emerson Sargeant scored in the 25th and again in the 32nd, both set up by Kennedy Bell. Michigan State took 11 corners to Colorado’s two across the match, and most of that pressure came before the break. Campbell made three saves in 45 minutes and was still picking the ball out of the net three times.
Then Colorado came out and shut them out. Goerish played the second half, faced one shot she had to save, and Michigan State didn’t score again. The Buffs scored twice, matched the Spartans 6-6 on shots on goal for the match, and had the No. 3 team in the country defending its own box in the final quarter-hour.
Kotschau’s goal was her fourth in five matches, and she has nine points on the season. The Leyba goal came off Emma Thielbahr’s flick to Faith on the right, Faith’s cross into the middle, and Hope finishing. Three of the four Buffs credited on those two goals are on the back half of the field.
Sanchez wasn’t interested in the framing.
“We didn’t play well in the first half, and Michigan State took advantage of it,” he said in a school release. “Having said that, in the second half we showed what we’re capable of. Against a good team on the road, we created a lot of good chances, scored two good goals and gave ourselves a chance to get back into it. But we dug ourselves too big a hole against a good team on the road. There are no moral victories in that.”
That said, this team spent 45 minutes going punch for punch with a program that beat Colorado in the Sweet 16 last November and hasn’t lost since.
What the schedule says next
Colorado’s non-conference slate is nearly done. New Mexico visits Prentup Field on Thursday at 7 p.m., with Ralphie scheduled to run. Utah State follows on Sept. 6, and Denver on Sept. 11.
Then the Big 12 starts, and the poll question answers itself. West Virginia, currently seventh in the coaches poll and 4-0, comes to Boulder on Sept. 24. UCF, ranked 13th and also unbeaten, hosts the Buffs on Oct. 2. Iowa State is on the road Sept. 17.
Colorado has not lost at Prentup Field in 18 matches.
