The Colorado School of Mines Women’s soccer team extended their season, beating Metro State 2-1 in the third round of the NCAA Division II Women’s Soccer Championship. With the win, the Lady Orediggers advanced to the elite eight for the second consecutive year. This was the fourth matchup of the year between these two RMAC foes, with Metro state taking the two regular season games and Mines taking the two tournament games after beating Metro 1-0 en route to the RMAC tourney championship.
The game got off to a slow start, and neither team scored for the first 15 minutes, but after saves by both goalies, Anna Evans buried a Dani Hering pass into the top left corner of the net in the 38th minute for her 17th goal of the year. The first half ended with the score Mines 1, Metro 0.
The Lady Orediggers came out physically in the second half and committed some early fouls. Dani Hering garnered a yellow card in the 54th minute, but it had little influence on the outcome of the game.
After her shot in the 55th minute was saved by the Metro State goalie, Megan Woodworth scored her eleventh goal of the year in the 65th minute. Anna Evans recorded the assist to give Mines a 2-0 lead with less than a third of the game remaining.
The game remained relatively quiet for the next 20 minutes with Mines content to sit back and nurse their two goal lead, the most dangerous lead in soccer. In the 87th minute, Metro State’s Abby Rolph scored on a penalty kick to cut the deficit to one, and with just three minutes remaining, Metro managed to rip off two more shots, but to no avail as the game ended 2-1.
As would be expected when one team is coming from behind, Metro State outshot the Lady Orediggers 16-11. The Roadrunners also committed ten less fouls than Mines, 11-1, but even with those stats in their favor, Metro State could not overcome a strong Oredigger team as the women of Mines came out of this battle the victor.