Golden, Colo. - In facing their biggest foe and game of the season the Colorado Mesa University Women's Soccer Team would comeback from a two-goal deficit this evening to force overtime and an eventual penalty kick shootout, but fall short as they suffered their second overtime decision of this postseason in a 4-2 penalty kick loss to #1 Colorado School of Mines of a tied 3-3 game at Stermole Soccer Stadium.
With the Orediggers winning in the shootout the Mavericks have been eliminated from the NCAA Tournament and conclude their season following today's game.
Like the Mavs' game against Fort Lewis College in the RMAC Women's Soccer Championship, this game will go down as a tie and not as a loss due to overtime rules only applying in the post season.
CMU ends their year with a 14-2-4 record while going 1-1 in the NCAA Tournament in Head Coach Jody Lingafeldt's debut season. The Mavs earned the #5 seed in the Tournament where they upset #4 seed Midwestern State University on Friday 2-1, before falling to #1 seed Mines today.
Before the game was decided by the penalty kicks there would three goals from each team in regulation with the Mavs' three goals coming from Sauvelyne Randel and Shelby Steele. Randel would score two of them for her second multi-goal game this season.
The first goal of this evening's contest would come in the 11th minute when Mines scored on an 'olimpico' goal from a corner kick. Instead of crossing to a header attempt from the corner, Mines' Lauren Clingman would kick the ball directly at the net from the corner with the ensuing ball ricocheting off of goalkeeper Keely Wieczorek's hands before finding the inside of the far post. The game would stand 1-0 going into half.
Despite there only being one goal in the first half, there was much offensive action as there was a total of 18 shots taken with 12 of them on goal. The Mavs would take seven of those shots with five of them on goal.
Both goalkeepers recorded five saves alone through those 45 minutes.
Mines would hold that 1-0 lead for the rest of the first half and roughly 40 minutes of the game, but Colorado Mesa would retaliate in the second half with them getting on the board thanks to a penalty kick score.
After a foul on Sarah Dunn in the penalty area, CMU would be awarded a penalty kick and elect Sauvelyne Randel to be the shooter. Randel, who's 3-4 on PK's this season, would improve to 4-5 as her attempt would be good with her knocking the ball into the left-center top of the net to even the match up at 1-1.
The Mavs' lead would be short lived though as Mines scored once again in the 56th minute to reclaim the lead.
Mines' goal came courtesy of Afton Rasco who fired a shot from outside of the penalty area and found the top right corner of the net. She would be assisted by RMAC Co-Player of the Year Bella Campos on the score.
Adding to their lead, the Oredigger's would score once more in the match when they made the game 3-1 in the 74th minute. Campos would be the scorer this time as her goal came from a pass that slid through two defenders before shooting into the top left side of the net. Providing that pass and assist would be Ellise Putnam.
With the end of their season in sight and less than 10 minutes remaining in the match, the Mavs looked to done, but a two-goal comeback would say otherwise as CMU would score twice in the 87th and 89th minutes to tie the game up at 3 apiece.
Leading that comeback would be Randel who scored again for the Mavs in the 87th minute. Randel would score this time on a misplay by the defense deep in their own end resulting in a turnover which lead to the goal, and her second of the game.
Just two minutes later in the 89th minute it would then be Shelby Steele who scored the Mavs' game-tying goal. Given a free kick from about 25 feet and just outside of the penalty area, Steele would launch the ball directly at the net and find the back of it as the goalkeeper missed it in all the commotion from the players in front of her. This was Steele's first goal of the season.
Following Steele's goal both teams would press hard to score once more, but neither would be successful as the game would enter overtime.
Both overtime periods would end scoreless, but not without some drama.
Once in each 10-minute period, the Mavs would appear to score the game-winning goal, but both would be waved off as each shot was ruled to still be in the Mines' goalkeeper's hands which does not allow the opposing team to then make a play on it.
Entering then into the penalty kick shootout, a familiar scene in the postseason for the Mavs, CMU would send four different players to the box to keep their season alive. The four players of Abby Fotheringham, Kylie Wells, Mira Houck and Shelby Steele would all take shots with Fotheringham's and Well's shots being successful. Houck's shot would be saved by the goalkeeper and Steele's would hit the top crossbar. Mines' Reese McDermott's and Callie Fuhr's two successful shots would then prove to be enough to give Mines the 4-2 decision and advance them to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
In the full 110 minutes of play there would be a staggering 45 shots taken with 22 of them on goal. There would also be 23 corner kicks taken in the match.
Keely Wieczorek would record seven saves in the final game of the season to finish her 2024 campaign with 58 saves.
The Mavs will now head into the offseason before finding action again this spring. More team awards and honors are to be released in the following weeks.
