Soccer Advances to Big 12 Semifinals on Shootout

Wednesday, November 1

San Antonio, Texas

12:30 p.m.

Colorado

11-5-3

Kansas (Quarterfinal)

11-7-1

OT 3

OT 4

Colorado

Kansas

Photo by: CUBuffs.com

November 01, 2006 | Soccer

Box Score

By: Lindsay Lew, Associate SID

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - The No. 23 University of Colorado women's soccer team battled the University of Kansas for the second straight game and came out winners in penalty kicks here in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament. The final score of the game was 1-1.

Colorado and Kansas were seeded No. 5 and No. 4 in the tournament, respectively. The teams met on Friday, Oct. 27 in both teams' final regular season contest. Colorado won that meeting 4-0 in Lawrence, but Colorado head coach Bill Hempen knew better than to expect the same result here playing the same team two games in a row.

"That has got to be one of the most difficult things to do," said Hempen. "That's an outstanding team and an outstanding coach and I knew it was going to be this way. If we hadn't played as hard as we did we would have lost. Kansas is awesome. Our kids had to match their intensity and they did, just enough to advance."

Colorado got out to the lead in the first half. Senior Katie Griffin played a cross through the Kansas defense where she found sophomore Nikki Keller running through. Keller took one touch and blasted a shot past KU's Julie Hanley to give CU a 1-0 lead at the 17:34 mark. It was Keller's third goal of the season and the seventh of her career, while Griffin dished out her fourth assist of the year.

The Buffalo scoring would end there, and Kansas would fight back. Senior Holly Gault played a long ball through the center of the Colorado defense, which Jessica Bush ran onto. Bush went one on one with CU keeper Kirstin Radlinski and beat her to the left before she tucked it away to tie the game at 1-1 at the 36:33 mark. Kansas would then control a lot of the momentum until halftime. KU outshot Colorado 8-4 in the first half, with Radlinski making two saves to Hanley's one.

"A game like this is just a battle, four and five games are always a battle," said senior Laura Munnelly. "From the beginning it wasn't going to be who played the perfect ball, it was going to be who battled the hardest."

The second half would be no different in the battle department, as Colorado managed seven shots to Kansas' eight, but neither team could get much going offensively as the fouls piled up. The teams would then play to overtime, where the ball was mostly in the Kansas end of the field, but again the Buffaloes could not generate quality offensive scoring chances. After two 10 minute overtime periods, the teams would decide the outcome on penalty kicks.

CU's Alex Cousins went first, making hers, and she was followed by KU's Emily Strinden. Strinden hit a soft shot to her right, and CU's Radlinski read the shot correctly and dove in front of it and saved it.

"She looked a little nervous and I noticed her body language before the shot," said Radlinski. "I talked to Bill before the penalty kicks and he told me, ?If you think that's where she will go, then that's probably where she will go.' It was a soft shot to my left, and I took the dive and saved it with my knee. It looked like it was going to under my knee but it didn't. I had chances at a couple of the others, but Bill said that we just needed me to save one and I got my one and the team did a great job of finishing their shots so we got the outcome we wanted.

After CU took the 1-0 lead on the KU miss, Katie Griffin, Laura Munnelly and Allison Kidd all finished their penalty kicks, as did KU's Monica Dolinsky, Shannon McCabe and Afton Sauer. It would come down to junior defender Brittany Dornseif to take the fifth and deciding kick for Colorado, and she converted easily to send CU into the semifinals of the tournament for the second straight year. It doesn't count as a goal for Dornseif, and it would have been her first at CU if it did, but she wasn't nervous in spite of what was on the line.

"In practice I made mine when we had our competition so I wasn't too nervous about it," said Dornseif. "Bill told Kirstin beforehand that she just had to save one, so she kept up her end of the deal and I just had to put mine away just like the rest of the girls did. I think defenders are usually the best at this...it's all about placement and we're good at that."

Dornseif and the rest of the defense will now prepare to take on the No. 1 seed and 11th ranked Texas A&M Aggies on Friday. A&M beat Colorado 3-0 in their first meeting this season on Oct. 6 in Boulder. The game will kickoff at 4:30 p.m. MST and tickets are available at all Ticketmaster outlets. For more information visit www.big12sports.com.