James leads furious CU rally at Utah
The Colorado women’s soccer team will not learn until Monday if it managed to extend its season. Regardless if the Buffaloes get another game or not, they refused to go away without a fight.
After trailing 2-0 at halftime, Shyra James capped a desperate second-half rally by the Buffs with her second goal of the game, blasting home the game-winner with 1 minute, 54 seconds remaining to lift CU to a 3-2 victory at Utah in the regular season finale on Friday.
The tally kept up James’ assault on CU’S all-time scoring records, while the rally keeps the Buffs’ NCAA Tournament hopes alive. The 64-team field for the NCAA Tournament will be announced at 2 p.m. MT on Monday.
With the victory, CU (13-4-3, 5-3-3 Pac-12) closes the regular season with three consecutive wins while remaining unbeaten in the past five matches against the Utes (3-0-2). It is the first 13win regular season for CU since 2018.
The Buffs entered the final weekend at No. 59 in the RPI rankings and will get a boost from the road win. In the Buffs’ favor is a 5-1-2 mark on the road, and an above-.500 finish in the Pac12. Yet the teams’ best wins were a nonconference victory against Michigan State, which was upset in its opening game of the Big Ten tournament earlier this week, and Arizona State, which had lost three consecutive games going into its regular season finale at Arizona on Friday night.
CU’S lone nonconference loss was against Marquette, which is at No. 125 in the RPI.
“We knew we had to get a win for the NCAA Tournament,” CU head coach Danny Sanchez said in a release. “Even when we were tied, we felt like we had to keep pressing to find the game-winner. There was never a moment that we felt comfortable in the second half. It would have been good to
get that goal earlier, but sometimes you get that goal super later and it doesn’t leave your opponents time to equalize. It couldn’t have played out any better in the second half.”
CU trailed 2-0 after Kaela Standish and Courtney Brown scored late in the first half. Brown’s tally came on a penalty kick in the 45th minute and sent the Buffs into the break 45 minutes away from what would have been a near-certain season-ending defeat.
Senior defender Lawson Willis started the comeback with the first goal of her career in the 54th minute. James took over from there, scoring her first goal just 2:06 later off assists from freshman Ava Priest and Willis, who recorded the first three-point game of her career.
Needing a victory, the Buffs claimed one in the waning moments. Senior Ally Clark began a run up the middle of the field before finding James, whose left-footed line drive completed the rally.
For James, the two goals increased her career total to 40, jumping Taylor Kornieck (39) for second all-time in program history and giving James a chance to catch all-time leader Nikki Marshall (42) if the Buffs land a tournament berth.
With four points, James now owns 86 and passed Fran Munnelly for third all-time (next is Marshall with 93). James also has 15 goals this season, which also would give her a shot at Marshall’s season record of 17 in 2006 if the Buffs’ season continues.