Michaela McGowan scored in the 79th minute and No. 17 Colorado beat Cincinnati 1-0 on Friday night at Prentup Field for its fourth straight win. The Buffs moved to 13-4-1 overall and 7-3-0 in the Big 12 with one regular-season match left. It was their first match at home since the Oct. 11 loss to Kansas, and it came in their first week back in the United Soccer Coaches poll after dropping out in mid-October.
Cincinnati made Colorado work for it. The Bearcats earned four corner kicks in a scoreless first half, and the Buffs went to the break with a 4-1 edge in shots. Between halves, CU unveiled its permanent Soccer Wall of Honor for the program’s 30th anniversary, with Nikki Marshall and Taylor Kornieck among the first four players honored. The goal came off Hope Leyba’s work along the end line. She got past two Cincinnati defenders and hit the post, and McGowan reached the rebound first and put it into the upper-left corner at 79:24. CU Athletics said she’d checked back into the match 89 seconds earlier.
Colorado outshot Cincinnati 15-2 by CU’s count but put only two on target. Brooke Goerish needed one save for the clean sheet, the Buffs’ third straight shutout. The goal was McGowan’s seventh of the season, a career high. Cincinnati fell to 4-8-5 and pushed for an equalizer in the last two minutes without finding one.
McGowan said afterward she’d had six shots go off frame before the one that counted, and coach Danny Sanchez had kept his message to her short when she went back on. “The only thing I said to Mac was, when you go back in, just shoot it on frame,” Sanchez told CU Athletics.
Colorado is 9-1 at Prentup Field this season by CU’s count, with the lone home loss coming against Kansas, and it closes its home schedule against Oklahoma State on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. MT.
