A UCCS throw-in in the second extra period turned into a free-for-all in front of the CSU-Pueblo net. Shaswar was able to push in into the goal as the Mountain Lions improved to 4-3 overall and 2-1 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play.

The win, combined with the UCCS women’s team’s victory earlier Wednesday, assured UCCS of at least a split for both men’s and women’s soccer in the Steel & Silver Series. The all-sports competition awards four points for the season series winner in each of the 10 sports that the schools have in common and five points for the athletic department with the highest cumulative grade-point average.

The Mountain Lions opened Wednesday’s scoring just 3:35 into the match. Bret Drefs collected a loose ball and deposited it into the lower left-hand corner of the net. The goal was Drefs’ fourth of the season and his third in UCCS’ past three matches.

The matchup between these two schools often gets heated and it did so on Wednesday. It impacted the match as the Thunderwolves’ Jamie Prakhine was red-carded after a dangerous tackle in the 75th minute.

The physical nature showed up again as UCCS was whistled for a foul inside the box with less than 10 minutes remaining in regulation. Robert Kinsey converted the penalty kick to knot the match at one.

The loss drops CSU-Pueblo to 1-5-1 this season and 1-2 in conference play.

Brandon Costa made one save to improve his record to 4-2 in goal for UCCS.

UCCS had the Thunderwolves on their heels early as they had 14 first half shots, finishing the night outshooting CSU-Pueblo 23-13.

The Mountain Lions nearly scored in the 24th minute as Agnes Arnadottir and Jessica Escobedo each got off a shot on goal on a scramble in front of the net.

Escobedo tallied another three shots on net to account for the six the Mountain Lions had on the evening.

A throw-in from the right side of the field into the box wasn’t cleared and found its way to Link, located on the left side of the box near the 18. Link took a touch in front of her defender and drilled into the upper left corner of the net.

Being a defender, Link doesn’t get that many opportunities to score. In fact, she had a mere six shots all of last season-but she made them count. Five were on goal and two went in.

“It’s so important to help out on the offensive side because the offense constantly helps out on the defensive side by pressuring their defense high,” said Link. “It’s a team effort all across the field so I’m happy to repay the favor.”

The Mountain Lions played stingy defense and used three key saves by sophomore Kelly Schroeder the rest of the way to earn the victory.

The results were not encouraging.

Cowgirls Sara Paul and Sheree Small combined for three goals to lift Wyoming (5-4-1 overall) over CSU-Pueblo (3-2 overall) on Sunday at the Louis S. Madrid Sports Complex. Paul scored goals in the 13th and 50th minute and Small added one goal in the 60th minute for the Cowgirls.

“It was nice to score some goals today,” Wyoming coach Danny Sanchez said. “We were able to get a lot of players a lot of minutes today. The win really helps us keep building toward the beginning of conference play in two weeks.”

Both teams began the first half with early shots on goal. The Thunderwolves’ Morgan Purkey put the first shot of the game on goal in the second minute, but Cowgirl keeper Meagan Burke made the save. The Cowgirls’ Paul answered right back with a shot on goal of her own in the third minute with CSUP keeper Erin Stephens making the save.

Paul had her second chance at goal in the 13th minute and capitalized on it. Allison Masumiya passed a through ball to Paul who got behind the CSUP defense and was one-on-one with the keeper, Paul kicked it low to the right post and past Stephens for the goal.

Wyoming kept on the attack taking six more shots in the half with two on goal, but Stephens had the answer keeping both out. After CSUP’s first shot on goal the Cowgirl defense stiffened and did not allow another shot on goal in the first half.

Wyoming’s offensive attack came out and scored on its first shot of the second half. Cowgirls Paul and Masumiya hooked up for a second time in the game at the 50-minute mark. Masumiya kicked another through ball passed the CSUP defense to the waiting Paul who kicked it in the back of the Thunderwolves net.

The Cowgirl offense was not done after its second goal and 10 minutes later put the game out of reach. In the 60th minute, Small took a deflected free kick in the front of the CSUP goal and booted the ball past keeper Savannah Thompson.

The Cowgirls and the Thunderwolves traded shots for the next 20 minutes before CSUP ended the UW shutout. In the 80th minute, CSUP’s Gabby Gonzales broke away from the Cowgirl defense and put a shot to the back post of the UW goal that slipped past keeper Courtney Merkle. The CSUP goal made the score 3-1 in favor of UW. When the final horn sounded the Cowgirls remained on top 3-1.

Midfielder Julia Thompson scored the first two goals of her career — one coming in the waning moments of each half — as the Skyhawks dominated possession and shots 21-5 and shots on frame 13-2.

Her first tally was set up off a pass by Taylor Tegtmeyer that Thompson dribbled down the east sideline, around a defender, and into the box where she easily beat CSUP netminder Savannah Thompson to extend the lead to 3-0 with 1:59 remaining in the first half. She notched her second marker when she launched a shot just inside the post with 1:07 left in the game. Fellow freshman Sam Weiss assisted on the second goal.

“This is the second game in a row that we’ve had a freshman score two goals,” said Damian Clarke, after watching Weiss net a pair in Monday’s 2-2 draw with Grand Canyon. “Sam had an assist in this game as well. Our young kids are making a difference.”

Fort Lewis took a 1-0 lead just 2:43 into the game when Jane Barden blasted a rebound into the open frame after Thompson had stuffed Megan Striedel’s shot from the right side. Senior All-American Hayley Hollenga passed from the center of the box to the outside to free Striedel.

Tegtmeyer netted her first goal of the season on an unassisted bullet from near the top of the box in the 39th minute. Striker Emma Cannis extended the 3-0 halftime lead to 4-0 just 1:14 into the second half on Hollenga’s second assist of the game.

Goalkeepers Amanda Raso (4-0-1 overall) and Amanda Snider combined for the shutout, with the latter seeing the first action of her collegiate career in 21:51 of relief. Each keeper stopped one shot. Thompson (3-2-0 overall) made eight saves for the ThunderWolves.

Next Up: Fort Lewis continues its three-game home stand when it hosts Nebraska-Kearney (2-3-0, 0-1-0) at 1 p.m. Sunday.

In the end, however, it was the Thunderwolves with the most to celebrate as the side from Pueblo beat the Grizzlies 2-1.

The Thunderwolves appeared to be in command, as CSU-Pueblo scored once in each half to take a commanding lead. The Grizzlies kept asking the question in the second half and finally got a breakthrough, but it came too little, too late.

The Thunderwolves improved to 1-1-0, while the Grizzlies slipped to 1-1-0.

Samantha Lewis struck first for the Thunderwolves with a bit of individual skill. The game was less than 11 minutes old when she fired from 25 yards out near the far sideline and delivered the ball to the upper lefthand corner for the first goal of the season.

CSU-Pueblo doubled the advantage in the 65th minute when Morgan Purkey latched on to an Angela Mendoza cross and fired it home.

The Grizzlies kept the ‘Wolves back and kept looking like they would find an answer. Alamosa’s Whitney Smith alone sent four shots toward the Thunderwolves goal. Smith finally delivered a header in the 90th minute off a cross from Erika Bendele to cut the lead in half, but it was too little, too late.

The UCCS Mountain Lions (1-6-0, 0-3-0 RMAC) return to the field for battle again on Friday against the Mesa State Mavericks (4-3-0, 0-3-0 RMAC). CSU-Pueblo (3-4-0, 2-1-0 RMAC) faces Colorado Christian at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.

The Falcons won their season opener for the first time since 2004 and did so in dominating fashion. The Falcons came out the gates as the aggressors, eventually out-shooting the ThunderWolves 27-3 and 13-2 in shots on goal.

Air Force took the lead with a goal in the 8th minute by sophomore midfielder Sophia Lockerby. Junior Bridgett Murphy and sophomore Stephanie Patterson assisted on the play. Murphy was able to shake two defenders in the right corner and sent in the ball to Patterson, who redirected the ball into the middle of the box. Lockerby was then able to get to the ball in a crowded box and poke the ball past the goalkeeper for the first score.

The Falcons made it 2-0 in the 37th minute on a goal by Dozier. Just seconds after entering the game as a substitute, Dozer took a long pass from Patterson and punched the ball past the diving goalkeeper and finding the net just inside the right post.

Air Force sealed the game up in the 86th minute as Dozier netted her second score of the game and made it a 3-0 game. Freshman Kaleigh Moses and Murphy put touches on the ball in a crowded box and put the ball past the keeper. Dozier was on the back end of the melee in the box and was in position for the easy open-goal score from five yards out.

Freshman Kelly Stambaugh, making her debut at goalkeeper, picked up the win with two saves in the shutout.

Air Force returns to action Sunday at Northern Colorado. Kickoff is set for 2 p.m.

On the field, Robert Kinsey had a hat trick and added an assist to lift Colorado State-Pueblo to a 5-3 victory over Colorado-Colorado Springs.

But what made sense is that there was a match at all.

Two weeks ago, both teams were officially eliminated from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference playoffs. Both teams were also under the NCAA maximum for number of games played for the season. So, because both UCCS coach Henry Ellis and CSU-Pueblo coach Roy Stanley wanted to get an extended look at some of their younger players in a game situation, they decided to schedule Sunday’s match.

“(We want to) give guys new roles; there are certain guys playing different positions than what they played in the regular season,” Stanley said before the match. “Other guys hadn’t played any real minutes throughout the year. We’re trying to get those guys an opportunity to start proving themselves for next August.”

The Thunderwolves didn’t travel any of their seniors, starting three juniors, four sophomores and four freshmen. The Mountain Lions’ lineup was similarly young.

“We’ve been starting younger players all season,” UCCS assistant coach John Sollock said.

True, but Sunday had more of an exhibition-game purpose even though the match counted in the standings as a nonconference game. Twenty-one Mountain Lions saw action in the match.

“Today, we were trying to get a lot of our young guys some playing time; guys that haven’t been playing for a while,” said Ellis. “We were a little discombobulated, and that showed throughout the match. We were still able to score three goals, but when you give up five it’s hard to beat anybody.”

UCCS took the early lead when Matt Friesen created a turnover on a CSU-Pueblo corner kick. Friesen knocked it to Greg Miley, who sent a through pass to Dami Oladiran on the UCCS side of midfield. The speedy Oladiran beat his defender on the dribble, closing to within 15 yards before launching his shot just inside the far post at the 12:37 mark.

Brenden Hughes tied it for CSU-Pueblo in the 27th minute, when he got a head on a free kick delivered by Chaz Hendrix from midfield that scooted past UCCS goalkeeper Adam Liszewski.

Friesen made it 2-1 in favor of the Mountain Lions when he knocked in a rebound of a Riley Gallagher shot at the 65:28 mark.

Two and a half minutes later, Kendon Knowles tied it by converting a Kinsey crossing pass.

The tie lasted for just a minute as Kinsey scored the first of his three goals, sending a Corey Cullen cross just inside the near post. Kinsey made it 4-2 in the 73rd minute by beating a UCCS defender on the dribble and slicing a shot inside the near post.

The Mountain Lions cut the deficit to one in the 77th minute. Aaron Brandt sent a free kick from 40 yards out toward the far post, where Ryan Piechowski was making a run. The ball never got to Piechowski; instead it hooked just inside the upper-right corner of the goal.

Kinsey completed his hat trick in the 83rd minute. Hendrix lobbed a free kick from just beyond the midfield stripe toward the UCCS goal. Liszewski hesitated for a moment before deciding to charge out to play the ball. Kinsey got to it first and popped a header over Liszewski that bounced into the net.

For both teams, the match showed some outstanding individual skill combined with some maddeningly inconsistent execution, particularly in the defensive end.

“There were some good things, but it was very sloppy for us today,” Ellis said. “It was an unfortunate way to end the season, but we’ve got a lot to look forward to and a lot of work in the weight room coming.”

With the win, UCCS leads the rivalry series 14-0. Because 45 points are available, UCCS needs just nine more to clinch the series and the Ent Federal Credit Union Trophy, which goes to the winner. The Steel & Silver Series awards points to the winner of games between the schools in seven women’s and three men’s sports and a five-point bonus to the university whose student-athletes have the best grades. Mountain Lion teams won last season’s series with a score of 33-12 and have won the Ent Federal credit Union Trophy in each of the series’ three years of existence.

Wednesday’s win was bigger than most for UCCS. The women’s soccer teams play only once this season, so the victory was worth all four points available for women’s soccer.

“It’s a huge rivalry between the two schools, and that makes for a big game, no matter what,” UCCS coach Nichole (Rick) Ridenour said. “The fact that we get them only once this year makes for even bigger circumstances.”

Despite facing heavy pressure, UCCS freshman goalkeeper Kayla Millar recorded her third shutout in five starts since taking over for injured senior Ashley Armstrong. Millar made 10 saves. Her counterpart, CSU-Pueblo’s Randi Wallace, stopped nine shots.

Coury Pitt’s goal in the 15th minute was all the offense required by UCCS. Pitt closed on a Thunderwolves defender who was trying to control a bouncer, managed to bump the ball away, ran onto it and drilled it in.

“I saw her playing with the ball in the back, so I took the opportunity to tackle her,” Pitt said. “I hit (the ball) with the outside of my foot because I saw the goalie coming. The right side of the net was wide open.”

CSU-Pueblo’s hyper-physical style began to take its toll on UCCS, particularly late in the game. Over the final 25 minutes, the Thunderwolves outshot UCCS 8-2, and five of those shots require saves by Millar.

“It was really scrappy, and scrappy balls are then hardest for us to defend because you don’t know where the ball is going,” Millar said. “We were having trouble clearing (the ball) to where we needed to clear it.”

One person’s “scrappy” is another’s combat. The match devolved into a show of force, complete with body checks, grabbing, pushing and even the occasional blow. Two players needed to be helped from the field; one was taken to the hospital.

While upset that the game was allowed to get in that state, Ridenour was more upset by her team’s failure to appropriately deal with it.

“That’s what our girls need to learn, to play through it,” she said. “We can’t rely on the refs to make calls for us; we can’t rely on them to protect us. We have to play through it and hold the ball. We need to control the pace of the game and make our own adjustments to protect the team.”

The Mountain Lions left the field with a 5-5 record, 4-5 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, and winners of three of their past four. CSU-Pueblo dropped to 3-7-1, 2-7-1 in the RMAC.

“We’ve been doing a lot better,” Pitt said. “It took us time to get chemistry together and, once that clicked, we started passing around teams and learning how to score.”