Margie Detrizio scored two goals as her Washington State Cougars (5-1-1) routed Northern Colorado (4-3-2) 6-0 on Thursday night. It was a flurry of four goals, in the first half, that decided this match as the Cougars reeled of their fifth straight win.
Detrizio would score her second goal of the night in the 63rd minute to make it 5-0 Washington State. The dagger came when she intercepted a pass from a Northern Colorado defender in space, which left her with nothing but space to get off the shot.
A few minutes later the Bears had their best opportunity of the night when Nadia Cooper lost control of the ball in a one-on-one situation with a Bear. But the sophomore was able to corral the loose ball and keep the net clean.
UNC kept its starters in, even when WSU had rotated most of it’s bench in, which led to a more competitive game. But in the end it didn’t matter as Washington State’s defense kept the clean sheet for the blowout victory.
Bridget Rieken would score her second goal of the night in the 83rd minute to give us the final margin.
At the start of the second half, both the Cougs and Bears rolled out their starting lineups. Which saw Washington State’s offensive attack pick up the pressure, in an attempt to keep adding to the lead so as to avoid a repeat of the second half against Denver.
Northern Colorado’s first corner kick came in the 56th minute as the result of an aggressive attack. The Bears had been far ore aggressive on both sides of the pitch, which they needed with the huge hole they’d dug themselves into. In a three minute stretch UNC had sent two shots at Cooper; neither save seemed to difficult as they were pretty much right at the sophomore keeper.
There seemed to be a concerted effort to feed Grayson Lynch in the second half. Lynch had scored in the prior to matches and a goal on Thursday Night would have made her only the sixth Cougar to score goals in three straight matches.
The fourth, and final goal, of the first half came from Rieken to make it 4-0 in the 27th minute. Rieken used her head to knock in a corner kick, it also might have grazed a Bear defender, to give the Cougars a 4-0 lead.
After that goal, the Bears did a slightly better job to contain the WSU attack as they would go into the locker room trailing 0-4.
Northern Colorado didn’t have a lot of good news to come out of the first half. Both sides quickly hit the substitutions in the 29th minute which seemed to help the UNC defense settle down and its attackers to become more aggressive. Fortunately, the Cougar defense played a lot learned on Thursday evening than they did on Sunday as they were able to keep the net clean.
The third goal of the match came when MacKenzie Frimpon-Ellertson sent a pass across the box and the Northern Colorado defender booted it into the net. It was a tough play for the defender, and they probably would have been better off if they let it go,
About three minutes before the own goal, in the 19th minutes, Frijmpong-Ellertson out maneuvered the UNC defense before she punched it off of the opposite post and into the net.
It was the perfect example of how the Cougar attack moved too quickly for Northern Colorado to get it’s defense set. There were, usually, a lot of wide open passing lanes and huge holes in the defense that Washington State used it’s superior speed to take advantage of.
WSU’s first goal of the match came after the attack applied a ton of pressure on the Bears’ defense. Detrizio’s magical season continued when Jenna passed it to her from the right corner to her at the corner of the box. The junior elevated her leg to connect with the pass and punch it into the upper corner of the net over the top of the goal keeper.
The Cougs were aggressive early on as the offense took control of the ball early on and applied pressure on the UNC defense. Even when the Bears were able to wrestle away possession from the home side, it didn’t last long and often led to a scramble for them to get into position defensively. It was a drastic improvement over how the match against Cal Poly had started only four days before.
10.13.22 – Yordan…please, Stop – Sports with Neil and friends
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Categories: NCAA, NCAA Soccer
