Weber State soccer loses twice in final weekend, enters tournament in 4th
Weber State women’s soccer entered the final weekend with first place still on the table, and with a good shot at clinching a top-two spot in the standings to claim a bye in the Big Sky tournament, but took two tough road losses to fall to fourth entering postseason play.
As the Wildcats (9-8, 6-3 Big Sky) fell at Montana and Northern Colorado at the top of the table, unluckily drawing the league’s two best teams on the road this season, Northern Arizona (8-10, 6-3) won its final six conference games.
Since that streak included a home win over WSU, NAU has the tiebreaker and takes third place. WSU is fourth.
Montana finishes 7-1-1 in league play and, with a win over Weber State, Northern Colorado is now 7-1. The Bears play Idaho State on Tuesday and claim the conference title with a win. No matter that result, Montana and Northern Colorado each earned a bye to the tournament semifinals as the top two teams.
Northern Colorado is already set to host the Big Sky Tournament Nov. 3-7.
No. 4 Weber State will start tournament play at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 3, against the No. 5 seed, which was not determined by the time of this writing.
UM 2, WSU 1
Weber State held a 1-0 lead for nearly 60 minutes Friday after Andelin Baldwin poked in a ball during a scramble after a WSU corner kick in the 12th minute.
Montana equalized on a big WSU miscue in the 70th minute. Weber played the ball back to Mekell Moss in goal, perhaps with not enough space to do so. Montana’s speedy Skyleigh Thompson raced to meet Moss near the top of the box and deflected Moss’ boot to clear the ball. The ball deflected toward the Weber goal and Taylor Stoeger softly touched it into an unprotected net.
Stoeger scored again three minutes later and the Griz took the win.
UNCO 4, WSU 3
A high-scoring affair came down to a Lexi Pulley glancing header from a corner kick into Weber’s net in the 83rd minute, ending a back-and-forth matchup Sunday.
Weber went up 1-0 when Taylor Slack assisted a Morgan Furmaniak goal in the 10th minute. After trailing 2-1, WSU equalized when Alexis Simpson scored before half in the 36th minute, assisted by Lauren McConnell, then took a 3-2 lead when McConnell scored in the 60th minute, assisted by Furmaniak and Trinity Kerr.
Taylor Bray gave Northern Colorado the equalizer in the 68th minute, setting up the Pulley winner with a few minutes left.