(MATCH NOTES - PDF)

OPENING TOUCH: Dixie State (2-1-2/0-0-1 RMAC) continues its homestand this weekend as the Blazers welcome in Regis and Black Hills State to Trailblazer Stadium for a pair of RMAC matches. DSU and Regis will tangle Friday night at 7:30 p.m., and the Trailblazers will wrap up the homestand Sunday vs. BHSU beginning at 12 noon. Live stats and streaming video information for both matches can be found HERE.

DIXIE STATE VS. THIS WEEK'S OPPONENTS: Friday night's match vs. Regis will be just the second meeting between the Trailblazers and Rangers on the pitch. Last season in Denver, the Trailblazers surrendered a goal midway through the second half and could not net the equalizer in a tough 1-0 road loss (9/21/18).
    DSU will look to make it two-straight wins over BHSU in as many tries as the Trailblazers claimed a 4-0 result over the Yellow Jackets in the first-ever meeting between the two sides in Spearfish, SD (9/23/18).

COACHING STAFF: Steve Golas (Coe College, 1998; 2-1-2 at Dixie State/33-47-14 overall record) is in his first season as Dixie State head coach. Golas brings to the Trailblazer program more than 20 years of collegiate coaching experience, most recently serving as assistant women's soccer coach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for four seasons from 2015-19. While at Milwaukee, he helped lead the Panthers to a 56-10-11 overall record, four Horizon League championships and one NCAA Tournament appearance (2018).
    Prior to his arrival at Milwaukee, Coach Golas had collegiate coaching stops at Texas A&M-Texarkana, Illinois College, William Penn, Angelo State, Lewis & Clark and Millikin University. Golas is joined on the Trailblazer sideline by first year assistant coach Paul Kimbrough (United States Sports Academy, 2011), and second year assistants and former Dixie State soccer standouts Laura Evans (Dixie State, 2007) and Juli Nield (Dixie State, 2006). 

TRAILBLAZERS PICKED THIRD IN THE RMAC IN 2019: Dixie State was voted to finish third in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference women's soccer preseason coaches' poll released on August 13.
    Defending RMAC champion Colorado School of Mines was the consensus choice to defend its crown as the Orediggers received 13 of the possible 14 first place votes to claim the top spot in the poll with 169 points. UCCS collected the other first place vote and tallied 151 points to finish second, followed by DSU in third with 129 points, MSU Denver (122 pts) in fourth, Regis (120 pts) in fifth, Westminster College (114 pts) in sixth, and CSU-Pueblo (91 pts) claimed the seventh spot to round out the top-half of the 14-team poll.

LAST SEASON IN THE RMAC: After joining the RMAC in 2018, the 2019 season will mark the second and final season the Trailblazers will be a competing member of the conference. In 2020, Dixie State will begin its transition to NCAA Division I status and will become a new member of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). 

LAST TIME OUT: Dixie State kicked off its final season of RMAC play with a hard-fought 1-1 draw against in-state rival Westminster College this past Sunday afternoon at Trailblazer Stadium. After a scoreless first 52-plus minutes of play, sophomore Whitley Johns got DSU on the board with her second goal of the year to spot the Blazers a 1-0 lead. The Griffins would strike for the equalizer early in the 67' to tie the match, and the two sides battled to a stalemate over the final 23 minutes of regulation and both OT periods to each come away with a point in the RMAC table.

2019 TEAM NOTES: Dixie State's tie vs. Westminster last Sunday extended its home unbeaten streak to seven-straight (6-0-1), while the Trailblazers have won eight of their last 10 at home overall since the start of the 2018 season ... DSU's six goals vs. CSUSB (9/5; W, 6-1) were the most goals scored in a season-opening match in the program's NCAA era and eclipsed the previous high of five goals set in DSU's first-ever NCAA match, a 5-0 result at Westminster College on Aug. 26, 2006.
    Nine different Trailblazers have accounted for all 11 goals scored through their first five matches of the year, which also includes an own goal that opened the scoring vs. CSUSB (9/5) ... the CSUSB own goal was the first by a DSU opponent since former PacWest foe Hawai'i Pacific got an unlucky defensive bounce in a 2-0 Blazer win during the 2015 season (10/30/15) ... in all, Dixie State has outscored its opponents 11-7 through five matches overall.
    Johns took the overall team lead in goals (2) and points (6) with her second-half tally vs. Westminster and in the process moved into a tie for ninth place on DSU's career goals list (14) with former DSU player Megan Spencer (14, 2012-16) ... Johns (14g/5a) is also one point away (33 pts) from cracking into the top-10 on DSU's career points list ... sophomore Zoe Clark tallied her first collegiate point on the Johns goal Sunday, joining Johns, senior Kilee Allsop, and juniors Kelsey Cook and Jill Bennett as the lone Trailblazers to have collected assists on the young season.   
    Sophomore goalkeeper Chandler Greenwood stopped a career-high eight shots in the Westminster draw and enters the weekend 2-1-1 record with 18 saves and a 1.22 GAA through five starts.
    Dixie State's 2OT draw at Concordia-Irvine (9/14) snapped a stretch of 92-straight matches over a span of five-plus seasons that DSU did not have a match end in a tie ... the last instance that Dixie State posted a draw came in the season opener of the 2014 season at home vs. Chico State (1-1; 9/4/14) ... meanwhile, you have to go all the way back to 2013 to find the last time DSU posted two draws in one season, doing so against both MSU Billings (0-0, 9/7/13) and BYU-Hawaii (2-2, 10/3/13).

UP NEXT: Dixie State heads to Colorado to begin the road portion of its final RMAC season with matches at MSU Denver on Friday, Oct. 4, and at UCCS on Sunday, Oct. 6.