DENVER – The University of Denver women’s soccer team earned its fourth Summit League regular season title with a 2-1 victory over South Dakota State on Thursday night at the Diane Wendt Sports Complex. Head coach Jeff Hooker coached his 600^th career match on Thursday night, and is now 381-166-53 in his head coaching career, including 177-38-14 in league play.

With the win, Denver clinched its 10^th NCAA Division I regular season title, and fourth Summit League title (2013, 2016 and 2018). Thursday night marked the first time since 2002-03 that Denver has won back-to-back regular season titles in the same conference. The Pioneers also won the regular season in their only year in the WAC (2012) and five times in the Sun Belt Conference (2002, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010). In addition to the top seed in next week’s Summit League Women’s Soccer Championship, presented by U.S. Air Force Special Warfare, Denver also earned hosting rights for the 2020 Summit League Women’s Soccer Tournament.

“We’ve done our best to not put pressure on our team and players to win, and just go out and perform and the wins happen,” Hooker said. “Today was a perfect example of that. We were unfortunate to not be able to play on our plush grass field, and played on the turf, which is a lot tighter. The team did a great job of keeping our style that we play and apply it to a field and conditions that are different. I was really proud of them. We moved the ball and kept it really well against a very good South Dakota State team.

“You look at your frame of mind as a coach sometimes and sometimes things you can’t control get you off track. Today was one of those days for me. (Former Director of Skiing Operations) Kurt Smitz sent me a text about the stuff I was going through today and really turned my mentality from where it was into a championship mentality. I can’t thank him enough for that.”  

Denver’s goals on Thursday night came from sophomore Camryn MacMillan (Littleton, Colo.), who netted her fifth of the 2019 campaign, and freshman Kaitlyn Glover (Englewood, Colo.), who stepped up to the penalty spot with the regular season title on the line in the 79^th minute and buried the first goal of her career.

MacMillan opened the scoring in the fifth minute, finishing a cross into the upper 90 from classmate Natalie Beckman (Denver, Colo.). The goal for MacMillan was the 12^th of her still young Pioneer career. Beckman earned her 15^th career assist, including her sixth of 2019 on the breakthrough.

South Dakota State quickly evened up the score when Gabby Vivier-Hannay scored her first of 2019 on a free kick from well outside the penalty area, placing it perfectly in the corner of Brittany Wilson’s (Littleton, Colo.) net.

Wilson made two saves on the night, as Denver’s defense held the Jackrabbits to just three shots on target.

A Jackrabbits clearance ricocheted off a SDSU hand in an unnatural position in Denver’s penalty area in the 79^th minute to give the Pioneers the opportunity for the winner. Glover, who was playing in her 13^th career match and entered Thursday with only 348 minutes played, grabbed the ball from the referee, put it on the mark and buried the first goal of her career to give the Pioneers the advantage.

Denver outshot SDSU 11-6, 6-3 in shots on target and took five of the eight corners on Thursday.

Thursday night’s match was moved from the University of Denver Soccer Stadium to the turf on Diane Wendt due to the snow storms in the Denver area earlier this week. 

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