Colorado beat Arizona 4-0 in Tucson on Thursday, Oct. 22, and Arizona State 2-0 in Tempe on Sunday, Oct. 25, and the second win clinched the Buffaloes a place in the Big 12 Tournament. They’re 12-4-1 overall and 6-3-0 in the conference, with all nine points from a three-match road swing that started with a 3-2 win at Kansas State.
They did it from outside the United Soccer Coaches top 25, in a poll that ranked two teams Colorado had already shut out.
Kotschau set a record in Tucson, and Arizona never got a shot on goal
Colorado outshot Arizona 13-5 and didn’t allow a shot on target, according to CU’s box score. Brooke Goerish and Jamie Campbell shared the shutout without having to make a save.
Reagan Kotschau opened the scoring from the penalty spot in the 22nd minute after a video review produced a handball call. CU Athletics said it was her fifth penalty goal of the season, breaking the program record of four Taylor Kornieck set in 2019. Michaela McGowan doubled the lead 2 minutes, 26 seconds later, and Jace Holley made it 3-0 in the 55th minute, finishing after a Hannah Healy shot was blocked.
Faith Leyba, a center back, scored the fourth off a Kotschau corner. It was her first goal of the season, and the assist was Kotschau’s 10th, which CU said matches the school’s single-season record.
Arizona State made Colorado work
Tempe was a different match. Goerish made seven saves, and ASU goalkeeper Izzy Duink made a career-high seven at the other end. The Sun Devils were short-handed, too. Cronkite News reported they had 19 players available and lost two starters to injury in the first half.
Hope Leyba headed in a Jordan Whiteaker cross in the 33rd minute for her 10th goal of the season. It was the 42nd of her career, tying Nikki Marshall for second on Colorado’s all-time list, according to CU. Faith Leyba added a header in the 62nd minute, her second goal in four days. The sisters grew up in Phoenix.
“Congratulations to Colorado, that’s an excellent team,” Arizona State coach Graham Winkworth said in ASU’s postgame release.
The coaches’ poll had gone the other way
A month earlier, Colorado was No. 13 when it beat No. 10 West Virginia 1-0 on Sept. 24. It was No. 24 when it beat No. 7 Baylor 3-0 on Oct. 8.
Road losses at Texas Tech and UCF came before the Baylor win, and a 1-0 home loss to Kansas came three days after it. The United Soccer Coaches poll released Oct. 13 had Colorado outside the top 25 with 14 points. The next week’s poll, the last before the Arizona trip, gave the Buffs five points while ranking Baylor ninth and West Virginia 16th.
Three losses in four matches is a real slide, and voters punish slides. But the poll that left Colorado out ranked two teams Colorado had beaten without conceding, and the Buffs then won three straight road matches. Winkworth, for his part, said in ASU’s release that his team had just faced two RPI top-10 opponents, Baylor and Colorado.
TopDrawerSoccer moved first, putting Colorado at No. 22 in its Oct. 26 top 25. The next United Soccer Coaches poll comes out Oct. 27.
Colorado finishes the regular season at Prentup Field, hosting Cincinnati on Friday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. and Oklahoma State on Thursday, Nov. 5. The Big 12 Tournament runs Nov. 9-14.
