Six goals, two of them straight off corner kicks, and a zero that’s now in the CU record book.
BOULDER — Colorado beat Army West Point 6-0 on Sunday at Prentup Field without allowing the Black Knights a single shot, a program record for fewest by an opponent. Army won the Patriot League last season and played in the NCAA tournament in November. “You don’t see that very often,” coach Danny Sanchez said. “We challenged them not to give up any goals and to not give up any shots, and this is a good team. It was a rough weekend for them, but this is the team that’s probably going to be in the NCAA tournament coming out of the Patriot League.”
The Buffaloes took 21 shots and put 15 on goal. Army junior goalkeeper Karalyn Dail, out of Arapahoe High School in Centennial, made eight saves to tie her career high and still finished the afternoon down six. Colorado’s three keepers never faced one. Jamie Campbell started, Brooke Goerish took the second half and Madeline Mueller played the last 10 minutes.
Hope Leyba opened it in the seventh minute with a header off a Reagan Kotschau service, struck from deep and dropped into the top left corner. It ran No. 3 on SportsCenter’s Top 10 that night. The goal was Leyba’s 33rd at Colorado and moved her alone into fourth on the program’s career list. Michaela McGowan, a Broomfield native in her first season with the Buffs after a year at Colorado State, scored her first as a Buffalo in the 18th minute and her second in the 28th, 22 seconds after Kotschau had scored straight from a corner. The pair are the second-fastest consecutive goals in CU history. Colorado led 4-0 at the break.
Sloane Phillips scored her first collegiate goal three minutes into the second half. The Buffs kept coming with the result long settled, and Sienna McAthy finished it in the 89th minute the same way Kotschau had, straight from the corner flag with nothing but a brush of the keeper’s hands. Two in one match. Sanchez credited senior associate head coach Jason Green, who had put the team through set pieces on Saturday. “The more you create, the more that’s going to happen. So maybe they’re a little fortunate,” Sanchez said, before noting that a team taking a lot of corners is a team putting the ball in dangerous spots.
The win was the 200th of Sanchez’s career. He answered the question about it holding his grandson at the podium. “The standard joke is I’m probably a grandfather by the time we get to 200, which I am,” he said. He called the number a reflection of the support the program gets, then came back to it: “I’m not going to kid you. It’s nice to get wins. It’s nice to hit milestones.” Colorado (2-0-0) hosts Cal State Fullerton, last season’s Big West champion, on Thursday at 7 p.m.
