Ute senior Amy Kofoed scored two goals in the final ten minutes to seal a 3-0 Utah victory
Nov. 7, 2001
LAS VEGAS - The Mountain West Conference Women's Soccer Championships kicked off the first round of competition on Wednesday at Peter Johann Memorial Field on the campus of UNLV. In the opening match, No. 4 seed University of Utah faced off against No. 5 San Diego State. Top-seeded BYU awaited to see which team they would face in the semifinals on Thursday. With the persistence of senior forward, Amy Kofoed, the Utes earned a 3-0 victory over the Aztecs to advance.
The first period evolved into a back-and-forth battle, as the teams exchanged possession. At the 21:21 mark, sophomore Missy Dennis converted a penalty kick giving Utah the early advantage. The remainder of the first period would be scoreless, as Utah took a one-goal lead to the break.
The second period continued to be a tight battle, as the teams held each other scoreless in the early going. With 10 minutes left to play, the score stood at 1-0. In the final 10 minutes, Utah turned up the pressure and attacked the Aztec defense. At the 82:51 mark, Amy Kofoed burned the defenders for a one-on-one situation with the goalkeeper and scored the 45th goal of her career to give the Utes a 2-0 advantage. With less than two minutes to play, Katie Tate led one last Utah charge, feeding the ball to Kofoed who scored her second goal of the game to give the Utes a 3-0 win.
"We battled hard," coach Amy Winslow said. "We were physical and we were aggressive. Those are things that we have struggled with this season."
Sophomore goalkeeper Lynnsey Asay earned the win for Utah and had five saves in the match. Overall, Asay is 9-2 this season. The play of Utah defenders Kari Keddington, Lesa Zollinger, Megan Maxwell and Maren Harper limited SDSU to just five shots-on-goal. Aztec forward Kim Castellanos, whose 10 goals in the regular season was tied for the best output in the conference, was held goalless on six shots.
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"I was happy with the way our defenders played," said Winslow. "They played tough and were able to keep San Diego's scorer out of the game."
The Utes' win advances them to the semi-final round in which they will face No. 1 seed BYU on Friday at 4:00 p.m. (P.T.). The winner will play for the MWC championship on Saturday at noon.
