Junior forward
Darian McCloy (Herriman, Utah/Herriman HS) scored twice to help lead Dixie State to a 3-2 victory over Fresno Pacific Saturday night at Legend Solar Stadium. The win, DSU's second-straight overall, moved the Trailblazers to 4-5-0 on the season, 2-2-0 in PacWest play.
The Sunbirds (5-3-0/3-1-0 PacWest) opened the scoring at the 24:55 mark when Alyssa Nakaguchi converted on the first of two penalty kicks FPU was awarded on the night to spot her side a 1-0 lead.
Dixie State evened the match 10 minutes later when senior
Megan Spencer (Provo, Utah/Springville HS) scored from 8-yards out off a feed to the right wing from freshman
Bailey Kroll (Meridian, Idaho/Rocky Mountain HS). Then just before halftime, McCloy took a two-touch combo from
Capri Goldsmith (Encinitas, Calif./La Costa Canyon HS) and
Liz Newman (American Fork, Utah/American Fork HS) and beat the FPU keeper 1-v-1 to put DSU on top at 2-1 at intermission.
McCloy struck again late in the 72
nd-minute as she took a centering pass from senior
Erica Gonzalez (Avondale, Ariz./Westview HS) and fired home her team-leading sixth goal of the year from the top of the penalty area to stake the Trailblazers to a 3-1 advantage.
FPU got one of the goals back at the 81:12 mark when Nakaguchi scored her second penalty kick goal, but that would be as close as the Sunbirds would get as DSU closed out the final eight-plus minutes of play to end the game.
"We're very pleased with the win tonight," DSU Head Coach
Kacey Bingham said. "We changed some stuff up in certain areas of the field going into the game today. The fact that we could execute the game plan and create so many good opportunities was very impressive."
DSU finished with 20 shots, 13 of which were on target, with McCloy and senior
Alexis Torres (Tucson, Ariz./Palo Verde HS) collecting five shots (3 SOG) apiece. The Trailblazers held FPU to 12 shots, eight on frame, while senior netminder
Angelica Ciucci (Stockholm, Sweden/Thorildsplans Gymnasium) finished with six saves to earn the decision in goal.
"We gave up very few good opportunities defensively tonight," Coach Bingham added. "There's not much you can do when the opponent gets two penalty kicks, but we did enough on the attack that we were able to cushion that blow."
Dixie State will now embark on its final road trip of the 2016 regular season next week as the Trailblazers head out for an eight-day, four-match swing through the Hawaiian Islands. DSU will open the trip with its final match ever vs. BYU-Hawaii on Oct. 8, followed by games at Hawai'i Pacific (Oct. 10), Hawai'i Hilo (Oct. 13) and Chaminade (Oct. 15).
