#1 Mines (11-0-1, 5-0-1) vs. Colorado Christian (3-6-2, 2-3-1) – Friday, 6 p.m. – Golden, Colo. [Live Stats] [RMAC Network]
#1 Mines (11-0-1, 5-0-1) vs. #RV MSU Denver (6-2-4, 5-1-0) – Sunday, 1 p.m. – Golden, Colo. [Live Stats] [RMAC Network]

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FEELS GOOD TO BE HOME
After spending the last two weekends on the road, the #1 Colorado School of Mines women's soccer team will spend two of the final three weekends of the regular season at home beginning Friday night when they return to Stermole Stadium to host Colorado Christian before taking on #RV MSU Denver Sunday in a match that could go a long way in determining the 2024 league champion.
 
FAN INFORMATION
Tickets can be purchased online in advance at minesathletics.com/tickets or at the gate on the day of the match. Mines students, faculty and staff will be admitted for free with their BlasterCard. Fans are encouraged to park in Lot K immediately to the north of Stermole Stadium. Fans as are not allowed to park in the neighborhood surrounding the Clear Creek Athletic Complex, as the City of Golden's street parking requires a permit seven days a week.
 
PLEASE BE ADVISED
For fans who plan to attend Friday's match, parking may be limited near the CCAC as Golden High School will be playing at Marv Kay Stadium Friday night. If Lot K directly to the north of Stermole Stadium is full, fans should seek to park in the garage located across from Volk Gym on Maple Street.
 
LIVE COVERAGE
Both matches this weekend will be streamed free of charge on the RMAC Network. Free live stats will be available through Sidearm for both matches. Links for video and stats for both matches can be found on minesathletics.com.
 
WEEK 6 RECAP
Mines closed out their four-match road trip with a pair of wins over Fort Lewis and Western Colorado over the weekend. Friday in Durango, the Orediggers erupted for five goals against the Skyhawks, getting a pair from Reese McDermott while Kaitlyn Manalili, Gaby Guerrero and Ellise Putnam added one each. Cloey Seltzer and Bella Campos both added two assists while Manalili had one as Allie Lundgren notched five saves in goal.
 
Sunday against the Mountaineers, McDermott led things off with a goal in the sixth minute before Campos and Laura Butler joined in on the fun. Jolie Jiricek and Lauren Clingman added assists while Lundgren and Sadie Wolf combined for the shutout in the 3-0 win.
 
RULES RESET
It wasn't too long ago that the NCAA implemented new changes to the soccer rules with the last set of changes coming in 2022. Now in 2024, there's been more tweaks to the rulebook, including at least a partial revision of one of the 2022 changes. First up is an adjustment to the substitution rules in the second half and overtime, when applicable. To avoid clock manipulation by teams that are ahead or teams that are tied late in a match, all substitutions within the final 15 minutes of regulation and any made during overtime will result in the clock being stopped. The second change affects overtime during the postseason, as sudden victory (otherwise known as the "Golden Goal") has been reinstated. In addition, video review has been expanded to review all penalty kick situations, all straight red cards events, denial of obvious goal-scoring opportunity situations and any potential offside violations in goal-scoring situations.
 
AT THE HELM
2024 marks the 15th season leading Mines for boss Kevin Fickes, the program's winningest head coach. With a career mark of 235-41-39 (.808), he ranks sixth in all of the NCAA and third in Division II among head coaches with at least five years of experience when it comes to winning percentage. One of two RMAC coaches with 200 career victories, under his direction Mines has overseen 36 All-America selections, 17 Academic All-America selections, 75 all-conference honorees and 25 RMAC major award winners. Fickes has also guided Mines to six RMAC regular season titles and nine RMAC Tournament crowns and made 15 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
 
THE CAPTAINS
The three Orediggers who wore the captain's 'C' in 2023 will do so again in 2024 as Ava Harman, Katie Koehler and Reese McDermott will all reprise their roles this fall.
 
Harman, a fifth-year player, started all 22 matches last season, logging a career-best marks with two goals and seven assists with both goals being game winners. Going back to her freshman season in the spring of 2020, Harman has started 68 of 72 matches in her career entering this fall.
 
Koehler, another fifth-year player, tied her career high with four goals last fall while also registering the first two assists of her career from her center back spot after starting 21 of 22 matches. Like Harman, she brings a wealth of experience and has started 69 times in her 72 matches played for over 6,000 minutes through four seasons.
 
McDermott enters her fourth and final season at Mines as one of the greatest to ever don the Silver & Blue with her named dotted across the program's record book. The reigning RMAC Player of the Year, former Freshman of the Year and three-time First Team All-RMAC selection, she scored 11 times with a career-high eight assists in 2023 with four game-winners while starting 21 times in 22 matches. Another experienced veteran, the striker started 59 times in 63 matches over the course of her first three seasons.
 
IN THE POLLS
It was a close one, but in the RMAC Preseason Coaches' Poll Mines was tabbed as the preseason favorite to win the league in 2024, earning seven first place votes while reigning champions UCCS earned six. Colorado Mesa was picked to finish third with Regis and MSU Denver rounding out the top five.
 
The Orediggers remained atop this week's United Soccer Coaches Poll for the third week running while second through fourth in the rankings this week remained the same with Cal Poly Pomona, Columbus State and Ashland keeping pace with Mines while Concordia Irvine moved up to fifth after Central Missouri dropped all the way to #25 this week. Colorado Mesa cracked the polls this week at #22 while MSU Denver continued to receive votes heading into week four of RMAC action.
 
ASSESSING THE STANDINGS
With MSU Denver stumbling Sunday against Colorado Mesa, Mines regained the top spot in the RMAC standings with a mark of 5-0-1 and 16 points. CMU and MSUD are right behind at 5-0-0 and 5-0-1 respectively with 15 points apiece followed by Regis, who is slowly emerging from a dreadful start to the season as they are 3-2-1 in league action with 10 points. Fort Lewis is next at 3-2-0 with nine points followed by Western Colorado and Westminster who are both 2-1-2 with eight points.
 
Black Hills State and Colorado Christian share eighth at 2-3-1 with seven points while CSU Pueblo is 10th at 1-3-1 and four points. Perhaps the biggest stunner of the season, defending champions UCCS sit in 11th with three points at 1-4-0 while New Mexico Highlands (0-5-1, 1 PT) and Adams State (0-6-0, 0 PTS) bring up the rear.
 
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Jolie Jiricek became the fifth different Oredigger to earn weekly honors from the RMAC this season on Tuesday, as she became the third Mines player in 2024 to earn Defensive Player of the Week honors. Read more about Jiricek's award-worthy performance here.
 
CLIMBING THE RANKS, PART I
When it's all said and done, Reese McDermott will go down as one of the all-time greats to ever play at Mines. Over the weekend, the senior from Houston continued her march up the program record books, taking over sole possession of third place all-time with 15 game-winning goals, passing Megan Woodworth (2009-12). After scoring five times in the last three games, she's also on the cusp of becoming the third 50-goal scorer in program history and would join Kayla Mitchell (2006-09) and Anna Evans (2010-13) as the only other players to do so. Additionally, McDermott is now just eight goals shy of tying Evans for second all-time and is 11 points behind Woodworth for third in all-time points.
 
Bella Campos might not be scoring at the rate she did last year, but the sophomore is still posting a solid season in 2024 with five goals and four assists, tying her mark from last year as she now has 50 points following her goal on Sunday. That puts her just one behind Brooke Stoermer (2014-17) for eighth, three back of Jennifer Kendall (2015-18) for seventh and four back of Emily Garnier (2014-17) for sixth. With plenty of soccer still left this season, there certainly a chance Campos could continue to gain ground.
 
CLIMBING THE RANKS, PART II
While not seeing much time of late in goal, Sadie Wolf is still on track to be one of the top keepers in program history. Already the owner of 19 shutouts, good for fourth all-time, her career GAA of 0.59 is also good for third in the record books while she owns the longest consecutive scoreless minutes streak of 996:02 which she set last fall from September 24-November 12 and is tied for the second-most consecutive full shutouts with five.
 
Fellow netminder Allie Lundgren has emerged this season and finds her name in the record books with six shutouts, good for eighth all time and one back of Penny Rogers (2008-11) for seventh.
 
When it comes to assists, McDermott along with Ellise Putnam are both closing in on top five status. Both have 15 dimes in their careers and trail Mitchell by three for fifth all-time.
 
IT TAKES A TEAM
The last couple of seasons, the Orediggers have put up some pretty stout numbers as a unit on both sides of the ball, but what they've done to this point in 2024 has them on pace for history. The current mark of 2.83 goals per game would be a new program record, while their goals against average would track for third. Still plenty of soccer remains but the four goals allowed would be the fewest ever if the season ended today, while the 6.3 shots allowed per game would be second. Already they've tied the 2009, 2016 and 2022 teams with three PKs this season and with at least six more games on the schedule, they've got chances at more records up and down the board.
 
CHECKING THE STATS
Reese McDermott seems well on her way to running it back as RMAC Player of the Year in 2024 as she currently leads the conference in scoring with 13 goals and three assists for 29 points, scoring eight more goals than the next closest players in the league this season. Bella Campos netted her fifth of the season Sunday and also has four assists for 14 points building off her Freshman of the Year campaign.
 
Ellise Putnam and Afton Rasco each have three goals and two assists while Ava Harman has three and one. Kaitlyn Manalili is tied for the team lead in assists with Campos at four while she's scored in two of the last three matches for Mines. Laura Butler has two goals and two assists while Gaby Guerrero, Natalie Rouse and the UCCS defense comprise the balance of goals scored in 2024. Other offensive contributors include Cloey Seltzer with three assists and Lauren Clingman with two while Jolie Jiricek and Jordan Bowermaster have one each.
 
Allie Lundgren has emerged as the mainline keeper for Mines this season, starting nine times in 10 games for 844 minutes and making 23 saves against just three goals allowed, posting five solo shutouts and recording a 0.32 GAA and .885 save rate against 59 shots. Sadie Wolf has seen time in four games with three starts for 236 minutes and made seven saves against one goal, carding one shutout while combining with Lundgren for two more with a GAA of 0.38 and a save percentage of .875 against 17 shots.
 
Through 12 matches, Mines is +30 in scoring margin at 34-4 and averages 2.83 goals and 20.8 shots per contest while allowing 0.33 and a mere 6.3 to opponents. They have 25 assists on their 34 goals and have 30 saves defensively. They have been issued only two cautions this season and whistled for 76 fouls while taking 82 corner kicks and going 3-5 on penalties.
 
SCOUTING COLORADO CHRISTIAN
Having already eclipsed their points haul from the entirety of last season and matching their overall win total with still three weeks in the season, CCU is improving their form and standing in the very competitive women's side of RMAC women's soccer. Their marquee win of the season came back on October 3 when they knocked off defending champions UCCS 2-1, but have since for 0-1-2 and been outscored 4-1 by CSU Pueblo, Colorado Mesa and Westminster.
 
Eight different players have done the scoring for the Cougars this season with Justine Moreau leading the way with three goals while adding two assists for eight points. Hannah Mares has two goals and two assists for seven points while Ana Dinverno has three assists to lead the team while scoring once herself.
 
Capri Dewing and Lexi Taitague each have a goal and an assist while Cora Lopp, Noelle Mingo and Ava Schock round out the scoring. Allie Hotz and Jessie Sims conclude offensive production with one assist apiece.
 
In goal, Alana Lopp leads the way with 987 minutes played as she has started all 11 games and made 35 saves against 14 goals allowed for a 1.28 GAA and a .714 save rate against 111 shots. Kati Conway has one appearance for three minutes and is yet to record any statistics.
 
SCOUTING MSU DENVER
The Roadrunners saw a five-match winning streak come to and end Sunday by way of a 2-1 loss to Colorado Mesa, knocking them from their perch atop the RMAC standings entering the weekend. Prior to that, MSU Denver had rolled to wins over Regis, Black Hills State, CSU Pueblo, UCCS and Westminster by a combined score of 10-1.
 
Offensively, MSU Denver has only scored 12 times this season thanks to nine players led by Tessa Killmon with three and Sami Spring with two. Isa Durkin leads the team with two assists while scoring once herself while Tessa Bretschneider, Madrid Mack, Elly Peterson, and Monica Yoder each have a goal and an assist. Two further players each have one goal while another four have compiled an assist.
 
It has been all Kylie Bach in goal this season as she has played every minute in all 12 matches this season, making 51 saves against just six goals allowed for an .895 save rate and a 0.50 GAA with nine shutouts against 128 shots faced.
 
Collectively, MSUD is +6 in scoring this fall at 12-6, averaging 1.00 goals and 9.8 shots per game while allowing 0.50 and 10.7 to opposing teams. They have 10 assists on their 12 goals and have taken 52 corner kicks while going 1-1 on PKs. They have been issued 10 yellow cards and whistled for 123 fouls.
 
SERIES HISTORY
Friday night will be the 29th all-time meeting of Mines and CCU as the Orediggers will stake their unbeaten record of 27-0-1 on the line. Winners of 25 straight matches in the series, the Orediggers are a perfect 14-0-0 when playing at home against the Cougars and will be doing so for the first time since a 1-0 win in 2021. The only blemish on the record is a 1-1 double overtime draw in Lakewood back in 2006.
 
When it comes to the Roadrunners, Sunday will be the 34th all-time matchup with Mines also leading the series 18-7-8 and winners of two in a row and 12 of the last 15 going back to 2014, a span during which the Orediggers are 12-0-3. The last meeting in Golden came in the 2022 postseason and featured the new postseason overtime rules which saw Mines come out ahead 3-2 AET as both teams scored in the extra time before an own goal by the Roadrunners in the 109th minute was the decider.
 
UP NEXT
Mines hits the road for the final time in 2024, heading first to New Mexico Highlands Friday October 25 before hitting Adams State on the return trip on Sunday October 27.
 
Fans can keep up with Mines women's soccer on Twitter and Instagram at @mineswsoc. They can also keep up with Colorado School of Mines Athletics all year long on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the handle @MinesAthletics.