Dixie State made its Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Women's Soccer Tournament debut a successful one as the Trailblazers topped MSU Denver, 2-1, in a quarterfinal match Tuesday night at Trailblazer Stadium. DSU (13-5-0) will now advance on to face RMAC regular season champion No. 5 Colorado School of Mines in the tournament semifinals Friday 11 a.m., in Golden, Colo.

The No. 4-seeded Trailblazers struck for a pair of first-half goals, the first of which came just 3:01 into the match when senior Nichole Mertz sent a somersault throw-in to junior Alexa Ashton, who finished with a header inside the MSUD 6-yard box to stake DSU to a quick 1-0 lead.

Sophomore Tori Page then put DSU up 2-0 midway through the 36^th-minute when she dribbled down the right wing, cut back against a Roadrunner defender and rocketed a left boot shot from 25-yards out for her fourth goal of the year and her third in the last two matches overall.

No. 5 seed MSU Denver (10-7-1) spoiled Dixie State's bid for its 12^th shutout win of the season at the 74:06 mark of the match when Lauren Wynns managed to shake a Trailblazer defender to go top shelf from 20-yards to trim the Blazer lead to 2-1.

Newly named RMAC Freshman of the Year Whitley Johns had a chance to get that goal back for the DSU side five minutes later as she got free for a shot inside the Roadrunner penalty area, but MSUD keeper Erica Torres made a diving stop to keep it a one-goal match. However the DSU defense managed to preserve the lead over the final 10 minutes of play as MSUD was held without a shot attempt the rest of the way.

"It was a great win for the program in its first RMAC playoff game," DSU Head Coach Gerry Lucey said. "We didn't play well but credit to Metro for pushing us hard for 90 minutes. We are happy to be moving on and hopefully we can learn a lot from this game."

Dixie State outshot MSU Denver by an 11-9 count, including a 7-3 edge in shots on goal, with sophomore Ambree Bennett accounting for four of those attempts (three SOG). Junior goalkeeper Nichole Rahman collected two saves and to improve to 10-0-0 on the year and move into a tie for third place on DSU's single season wins list.

In the other three RMAC quarterfinal matches, Mines defeated No. 8 seed Colorado Christian, 4-1, while second-seeded Colorado-Colorado Springs claimed a 3-1 result over No. 7 seed CSU-Pueblo, and No. 3 seed Westminster College slipped past No. 6 seed Regis, 2-1. Westminster and UCCS will meet in the second semifinal match Friday at 4 p.m.