The University of Denver women’s soccer team did everything but score in their Summit League tournament semifinal loss against Oral Roberts Sunday afternoon. After not losing a Summit League match all season and winning the conference regular season title, the Crimson and Gold fell to the Golden Eagles in penalty kicks by a score of 3-2. This is the first time since 2016 that the team fell in the semifinals of the tournament and did not reach the finals.
Denver had success against the Summit League coming into the Sunday matchup. DU had defeated Oral Roberts 5-1 just a week earlier and had not dropped any matches in Summit League play. The Summit League also awarded two players and head coach Jeff Hooker with individual awards for the season on Oct. 27.
Graduate student defender Devan McSwain (Glenwood Springs, Colo.) won Defensive Player of the Year for the second year in a row, graduate student midfielder Sami Feller (Grand Junction, Colo.) won Midfielder of the Year and head coach Jeff Hooker won Coach of the Year for the fifth time in his career. DU was also the no.1 seed going into the Summit League tournament and won the regular season title for the fourth season in a row.
DU showed their dominance in the first half. Denver possessed the ball much more than Oral Roberts and was more potent on offense compared to the Golden Eagles. Denver never let Oral Roberts record a shot attempt in the first half, and outshot them 7-0. Denver, though, would not be able to put many shots on goal out of their attempts. They finished the match with 13 shots, and only five were on goal.
Denver had three corner kicks in the first half and never let Oral Roberts register one for the entire game. The first chance of the game came off a corner when freshman defender Audrey Miller (Bellevue, Wash.) connected with the ball and just missed wide. Denver finished with five corner kicks in the match.
Oral Roberts started to make their own progress at the start of the second half. They finally got a shot on goal in the first minutes of the half and started to put the Crimson and Gold on their heels defensively. DU stood strong in front of their own goal and would make their own offensive progress, and sophomore midfielder Jaydn Goodrich (Golden, Colo.) would register the best chance of the game. Goodrich took a through ball from sophomore midfielder Ella Frost (Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.), dribbled into the box and delivered a low shot that was knocked away by the Oral Roberts goalkeeper.
The buzzer sounded to signal the end of the second half and the match would need extra time to decide who would move on to the Summit League championship. There was little action in either 10-minute period of extra time. Oral Roberts registered one shot attempt and Denver had one corner kick. The twenty minutes were not enough and the game would be forced to go to penalty kicks.
DU started off strong in the shootout. Senior midfielder Kaitlyn Glover (Englewood, Colo.) fired a strong shot into the top of the goal on the first penalty kick attempt. Junior defender Addisyn Hyrup (Lakewood, Colo.) would follow up Glover’s attempt with a goal of her own and give DU a 2-1 lead going into round number three of the shootout. Oral Roberts would convert goals of their own in rounds three and four and take the lead over DU. Senior defender Hannah Gallegos (Los Ranchos, N.M) would get the last crack and try to keep the shootout going but the Oral Roberts goalkeeper made a tremendous diving save that sealed the deal for Oral Roberts.
The women’s soccer season is not officially over yet as the NCAA tournament will kick off in November. The 64-field bracket will be revealed on Nov. 7 and each conference champion will be given an auto-bid along with 33 teams who will receive an at-large bid into the tournament. DU is ranked 115th on the NCAA DI Women’s soccer rankings as of Oct 30 and will hope to be one of the 33 teams who receive an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament.
