Summit leader Denver beats UNO 3-0

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October 19th, 2013

Omaha, NE – The University of Denver Pioneers brought to Omaha the Summit League’s top two scorers, top assist maker and top goalie judging by goals against average.

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The Pioneers average a goal more per game than the second best scoring team in the conference.

Plainly, Denver is dominating play in the Summit League.

Before the game Friday with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Denver had won its past three league games by the total score of 12-0. UNO head coach Don Klosterman said his team knew who was coming to town. He said the squad did their homework after watching previous Denver games. Klosterman noticed opposing teams were playing a very defensive game – not pushing to score goals, but rather sitting back and making sure Denver didn’t unload offensively.

“I think it’s like any team,” Klosterman said. “If you have kids that are competitive, and kids that understand a little bit about what’s going on. They want to rise to the occasion and play against a team like this, highly ranked and a team that everybody has already told you is going to beat you and they are going to be the best team in the league. I think that was partly our guys’ character trying to prove to people that they were not going to (lie) down and defend the whole game against these guys that (instead) they would come out and try to score some goals. The other teams that we watched on film just kind of hung back the whole time, and we said, ‘nope we are not going to do that, we are going to go play’, I was proud of what they did.”

UNO head coach Don Klosterman is a two-time NSCAA National Coach of the Year. (Photo Courtesy KVNO News)

UNO head coach Don Klosterman is a two-time NSCAA National Coach of the Year. (Photo Courtesy KVNO News)

Over the past three games Denver allowed a stunning 12 total shots. The Mavericks came out strong with five shots in the first half. So the Mavs were off on the right step, according to Klosterman. But they did misstep. During a free kick by Denver, the Mavs were not set up quick enough and the Pioneers’ Nicholette DiGiacomo hurried to the line for the attempted shot, which went in past an open net.

After this Denver took control of the game, scoring again in the 33rd and 87th minute to put the game away, 3-0. Denver is the nation’s number 16 ranked team, according to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America and with the win they improved to 13-1-1 overall and 4-0-0 in the Summit League.

Caniglia field on campus at UNO will open for practice Monday and the remainder of this year’s home games will be played there. UNO had been playing games at Chili Greens on 68th and Spring street before the move. Klosterman said whether or not the surface brings a new challenge is yet to be seen, but he and the team are ready to play on campus.

“I’m excited about it; the girls are excited about it,” Klosterman said. “It’s beautiful, it is what we wanted. I think it is going to play very well. I think it is going to play a lot like a natural grass, a very short natural grass field. Whether or not it is going to be really, really fast we will see. If that benefits us, we’ll see, I don’t know. But, we are excited to find out.”

UNO (3-8-2, 1-3-0 Summit) has an 11 day break before taking on Oral Roberts on October 27 in Tulsa, Okla.

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