The Skyhawks learned a hard lesson about letting teams hang around in a loss to Western State.
On Friday, they gave no quarter.
The No. 14 Fort Lewis College women’s soccer team controlled the game from the outset, outshot Colorado Christian 22-3 and got the goals to match in a 4-0 blanking of the Cougars at Dirks Field.
Unlike last week’s 2-0 loss to the Mountaineers, the Skyhawks (8-1-0, 5-1-0 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) got the early goal to match their dominant play.
Brooke Milliet tracked Nicole Schumacher’s free kick from just inside midfield and stuck her foot out for a midair deflection past CCU goalkeeper Shaya Lawrence just nine minutes into the contest.
“It came down to a matter of just buzzing and staying active out there, and then Schu’ had a perfect ball in, and it just was a matter of putting my foot out,” said Milliet, a Durango High School alumna and daughter of Charlie and Janis Milliet.
The Skyhawks’ passing was crisp, and the spacing was spot on almost throughout the entire contest, keeping the Cougars (4-5-0, 1-4-0 RMAC) off the ball for long stretches at a time, most notably during a quality passing display in the attacking third in the first half that saw FLC get 10 or more passes off to set up an eventual scoring chance.
CCU hurt its own cause in the 17th minute, when an FLC throw-in glanced off the hip of a defender and went in.
Sam Weiss capped the scoring from there. Her first goal came off a long pass from Jordan Hix through the CCU back line; she beat the defense to the ball and slid it under the charging goalkeeper for a 3-0 lead in the 67th minute.
She’d make a similar run for her seventh goal of the year, this time off a feed from Carolyn Archer down the right wing, which she tapped around substitute goalkeeper Kiersten Turner and into the net.
The key on both was the midfield’s ability to open up her run by playing the ball through a lane she wasn’t running through, allowing her to cut diagonally and beat the defense to the ball, and the passes were played with enough touch that they didn’t run far enough for the goalkeeper to come out and cut off the opportunity before it began.
“I think it all comes from the midfield being able to find the gap that I’m not running through, because it makes it so much easier for me,” Weiss said. “And for me, it’s just a matter of spinning out. It’s just a few steps. ... I have the easy job. I feel like the midfielders have it hard.”
The pressure throughout the field when FLC didn’t have the ball was quality, as well. The Skyhawks didn’t allow CCU too much time to make decisions, dispossessing the Cougars frequently and forcing goalkeeper Caitlyn Espinosa to make just two saves in the Skyhawks’ second consecutive shutout.
“We just stayed connected, and we started defending in the front,” FLC head coach Damian Clarke said. “When the front’s defending well, then the midfield’s defending well. I think Megan Striedel and Shea (Haycock) did a fantastic job of really defending well on our midfield line and giving us a chance to go forward higher up the field.”
rowens@durangoherald.com
