(MATCH NOTES - PDF)

OPENING TOUCH: Dixie State (10-5-0/6-5-0 RMAC) wraps up the 2018 regular season at home with two crucial league matches as the Trailblazers look to clinch an RMAC postseason tournament berth. DSU opens the homestand vs. Colorado Mesa (6-5-4/4-4-3 RMAC) on "Senior Night" this Thursday inside Trailblazer Stadium at 7:30 p.m. DSU will honor its two seniors, including Nichole Mertz (Springville, Utah/Springville HS) and Taylor Claiborne (Peoria, Ariz./Raymond S. Kellis HS), prior to kick-off.
    DSU will then take the field for the regular season finale vs. Western Colorado (4-10-1/4-6-1 RMAC on Saturday in a match played at Dixie High School beginning at 12 noon.
    Live stats and streaming video information for both matches can be found HERE.

DIXIE STATE VS. THIS WEEK'S OPPONENTS: Dixie State owns a 2-1-0 series edge over CMU, though the two sides have not met since the 2011 season when the Mavericks claimed a 1-0 victory in Grand Junction (9/8/11). DSU won the first two matches in the series, including a 5-1 road win in during the 2008 season (10/8/08) and a 2-1 home result in the 2010 campaign (9/9/10).
    Saturday's match vs. Western Colorado will be just the second match between the Trailblazers and Mountaineers on the pitch. Last season, DSU opened the 2017 season with a 3-0 triumph in a match played in Nampa, Idaho (8/31/17).

COACHING STAFF: Gerry Lucey (LIU Post, 1994; 10-5-0 at Dixie State; 163-54-21 overall record) is in his first season as Dixie State head coach. Prior to his arrival at DSU, Lucey collected 153 victories over 10 seasons as a head coach at three NCAA Division II women's soccer programs, which included eight NCAA tournament appearances, three NCAA regional championships, and one NCAA Division II national championship won during his tenure at the University of Tampa in 2007.  
    Lucey is joined on the Trailblazer sideline by first year assistant coaches Freddy Delgado (Regis, 1997), along with former Dixie State soccer standouts Laura Evans (Dixie State, 2007) and Juli Nield (Dixie State, 2006), and Alan Berrios (Dover Business College).

LAST TIME OUT: Dixie State closed out the road portion of the 2018 regular season with a pair of big RMAC victories last weekend. The Trailblazers opened the trip with a convincing 5-1 result at New Mexico Highlands last Friday, before posting its school-record breaking ninth shutout win of the season in a 2-0 victory at Colorado State-Pueblo on Sunday.

RMAC RACE COMING TO A CLOSE: Dixie State enters the final weekend of the 2018 regular season in sixth place in the RMAC standings at 6-5-0 (18 points), one point behind fifth-place Regis (6-4-1, 19 pts.) and three points back of MSU Denver (7-4-0, 21 pts) as teams jockey to lock up the eight conference postseason tournament seeds. Four teams have already clinched tourney berths, including Colorado School of Mines (12-0-0, 36 pts), which has secured at least a share of the RMAC regular season championship, as well as Colorado-Colorado Springs (10-1-0, 30 pts.), Westminster College (8-2-1, 25 pts) and MSUD.

JOHNS REPEATS AS RMAC OFFENSIVE POW: Freshman forward Whitley Johns (Gilbert, Ariz./Campo Verde HS) earned her second-straight RMAC Offensive Player of the Week award on Tuesday for her performances in the Trailblazers' road sweep last weekend.
    Johns continued her outstanding work as she tallied four goals on the trip, two of which were eventual game-winning tallies. The freshman scored goals in both halves in the Trailblazers' 5-1 result at New Mexico Highlands (5-1) last Friday, then followed that up with her third-straight two-goal match with a pair of first-half scores in DSU's 2-0 win at Colorado State-Pueblo (2-0) this past Sunday.
    Johns has scored at least one goal in four-straight matches and has found the back of the net in eight of DSU's 15 matches overall, and has seven goals and 16 points (with two assists) over this current stretch. She enters the final weekend of the 2018 regular season as the RMAC leader in game-winning goals (6 - #2 on DSU's season list, #5 on DSU's career list) and is second in the conference in total goals (11 - t-7th on DSU's season list) and points (25 - 8th on DSU's season list).

CLEAN SHEETS: Dixie State broke its NCAA-era program record with its ninth shutout win of the season last Sunday at CSU-Pueblo. The nine wins eclipsed the previous record of eight set during the 2007 season.
    In fact, DSU has posted 13 shutout results in its 15 matches (9-4-0) to this point of the 2018 season, which is tied for the most in a single season in program history (2016; 8-5-0), and includes a program-best eight-consecutive matches to begin the year. The two matches that saw both teams find the back of the net came in a 2-1 DSU home loss to current No. 17 UCCS on Sept. 30, and last Friday's 5-1 win at NMHU.
    Overall, the Trailblazers have played to an 80-47-3 (.627) record in 130 total shutout results in their NCAA era. Entering play this weekend, Dixie State is ranked t-19th nationally in shutout percentage (.600; #2 in the RMAC) and 17th in NCAA DII in GAA (0.53; #2 in the RMAC).

2018 TEAM NOTES: DSU has scored 14 of its 26 goals on the season over its last four matches, including a season-high five goal at NMHU last Friday ... DSU is ranked sixth in the latest United Soccer Coaches South Central Regional poll and seventh in this week's NCAA South Central rankings.
    Along with Johns' three-straight two-goal matches, sophomore Ambree Bennett (South Jordan, Utah/Herriman HS) netted two goals at NMHU and collected an assist on Johns' GWG at CSU-P ... junior Alexa Ashton (St. George, Utah/Dixie HS) scored her first goal of the season to open the scoring at NMHU ... junior Kilee Lamb-Allsop (Smithfield, Utah/Sky View HS) dished out her team-leading fifth assist on the Ashton goal at NMHU, while sophomore Jill Bennett (Salt Lake City, Utah/East HS) (at NMHU) and freshmen Ashlyn VanTussenbroek (Salt Lake City, Utah/Olympus HS) (at NMHU) and Zoe Clark (Logan, Utah/Logan HS) (at CSU-P) tallied their first points of the season on assists during the road trip.
     Lamb-Allsop, along with a stout Blazer defensive unit anchored by senior Nichole Mertz (Springville, Utah/Springville HS) and juniors Kamie Hunter (Hooper, Utah/Fremont HS) and Ashton, have combined to limit DSU opponents to just eight goals and 46 SOG (1119 total shot attempts) through 15 matches this season ... Mertz became DSU's career leader in matches played with her start at CSU-P last Sunday ... Mertz has played in 75 matches over her near four-year career and has got the starting nod in 56 (t-#10 all-time at DSU) of those appearances, including all 15 matches this season.
    Junior GK Nicole Rahman (Palos Verdes, Calif./Palos Verdes HS) picked her fourth shutout win of the year at CSU-P last Sunday to move to 7-0-0 on the year ... six of her seven wins in goal overall this season have come via shutout, including ShO results at CSU San Bernardino, at CSU San Marcos (combined ShO) and at CSULA (combined ShO) ... Rahman's four solo ShO wins this season is good for second on DSU's single-season list and places her sixth on DSU's career list ... Rahman has also played in enough minutes in goal (572-plus) to vault atop DSU's single-season GAA list with a minuscule 0.16 GAA.

UP NEXT: The 2018 RMAC Women's Soccer Tournament will be held Oct. 30-Nov. 4, with quarterfinal play held at on-campus sites of the top-four seeds (Oct. 30), and semifinal and final games on the home pitch of the highest remaining seed (Nov. 2-4). The winner of the tourney will earn the conference's automatic bid to the 2018 NCAA South Central Regionals, which will be held Nov. 9-11.