I love football. I love soccer, too.
For some of you, that might be heretical. But on this blog, since I can write about whatever I want to write about, I’m going to write about things that I love. So I will write about soccer, and why even non-fans should pay attention to soccer generally and the CU women’s soccer team specifically.
Since we’ll be covering CU women’s soccer from the angle of someone that is new to soccer, I first want to introduce a concept that may be foreign to you:
The first rule for watching soccer is not to watch the ball.
As football fans, many viewers simply follow the ball. From the center to the QB to the running back or wide receiver to the run! run! run!, and then do it all over again.
With soccer, try not to watch the ball. Instead, redefine your understanding of what and where the action is.
In an average soccer game, an average player will get about 4.6% of the total touches of the ball. That equates to about 60 touches per game in an average Premier League game and about 4 minutes of “game action.” The 86 minutes that a player doesn’t have the ball, what are they doing? Are they just standing there like a right fielder in baseball, waiting for the ball to come to them? No. They’re moving, pressing (think playing full court defense in basketball), marking (think playing man to man defense in basketball) and repositioning themselves. In other words, affecting the game…yet most viewers miss almost all of it. Once you learn to watch something other than the ball, you’ll really start to understand soccer and you’ll see how players move into space to make themselves available to receive a pass, or how a player drops into position to cover a space defensively, or how the player is continuously scanning the field to plot where the next pass will go. It’s constant, and it’s engaging, and it’s what makes watching soccer so much fun.
And watching the CU women’s soccer team is fun.
This past season, the CU women’s soccer team made the NCAA tournament for the 14th time since 2003, advancing to the 2nd round by defeating Georiga before falling against 3rd ranked Wake Forest. The team plays at Prentup Field, located just off Colorado Avenue in East Campus. The facility has seating for about 2,000 fans but has additional room for fans with lawn chairs and blankets, and has had over 3,000 fans in attendance at big games. Tickets are cheap, and you can watch great soccer.
This upcoming season, the Buffs will be led by sisters Hope and Faith Leyba. Hope Leyba was the leading scorer on the team in 2024 with 8 goals, while sister Faith was a First Team All-Big 12 centerback, a lockdown defender and intimidating presence on the backline. Both Leyba Sisters are both physically dominant and play extremely hard. This upcoming season they will be joined by junior Ava Priest, the Boulder native who led the Buffs with 5 assists while adding 5 goals. Priest was a state champion-level high school sprinter and her speed translates very well at the collegiate level.
Last season the CU women’s soccer team had struggles scoring down the stretch. Part of this is because the team’s all-time leading scorer, Shyra James, struggled with injuries and missed most of the 2nd half of the season. James has since graduated and will begin her professional soccer career in Portugal playing for Racing Power FC in the first division of the Portuguese women’s league. One player that may be able to pick up some of the scoring slack is sophomore-to-be Jace Holley. The Fort Collins native was named to the 2024 Big 12 All-Freshman team and ranked third in the Big 12 with 4 game winning goals.
Off-season payer movement
There has been a lot of player movement this off-season.
Unfortunately, team captain and 2nd team All-Big 12 midfielder Julianna Hayward decided this offseason to transfer to Georgia. Hayward tallied 1 goal and 2 assists this past season but was often a spark from the midfield. The Legacy High School alum’s creativity will be missed. Other transfers out of the program include Claire Curren (2 assists) and Angelina Moschetti (1 goal and 1 assist).
On the flip side, however, CU has been able to add 5 separate transfers this off-season, each of them Colorado natives that want to return to Colorado to play out the remainder of their college careers. If there is a primary criticism of head coach Danny Sanchez, it’s that he’s been unable to land the most highly coveted Colorado players coming out of high school. Colorado girls’ soccer is arguably the strongest in the country — for example, US Women’s National Team players such as Lindsay Heaps (Horan), Sophia Wilson (Smith), Mallory Swanson (Pugh), Jaelin Howell, Ryan Williams, and Ally Watt all are Colorado natives that developed their skills in the Colorado youth soccer system. These kinds of players are still getting churned out through great local clubs but CU has had a difficult time getting them to join the Herd out of high school. One positive for Sanchez, though, is that he’s been good at getting “bounceback” transfer players by keeping great relationships with players after they’ve committed elsewhere, and he’s been able to welcome many of them back to CU as transfers.
The 5 new transfers back into the program are a great example of this ability to convince extremely highly regarded Colorado natives to return home to play. This group is comprised of the following players:
Lexi Meyer (transfer from Alabama). Meyer is a 5’3” midfielder from Lone Tree that this past season, as a true freshman at Alabama, finished 2nd on the team with 4 assists. Alabama finished the season by making the quarterfinal round of the NCAA tournament. Meyer was ranked the #37 recruit nationally coming out of high school and will have at least 3 years of eligibility at Colorado.
Caley Swierenga (transfer from LSU). Swierenga is a 5’9” defender that was a regular starter over her 2 seasons with LSU, which advanced to the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament this past season. The Denver native was a 4-star recruit coming out of high school and was selected for the US U17 national team. She will have at least 2 years of eligibility at CU.
Jordan Whiteacre (transfer from TCU). Whiteacre appeared in 18 matches as a true freshman for TCU this past season, which won the Big 12 and advanced to the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament. Whiteacre is a 5’11” defender and earned All-American honors in high school, was a 3-time US Soccer Youth National Team ID invitee, and was named Colorado Player of the Year by United Soccer Coaches. She will have at least 3 years of eligibility at Colorado.
Reagan Kotschau (transfer from Washington State). Kotschau started all 38 of her matches in 2 seasons at Washington State, posting 5 goals and 8 assists in Pullman. She was named to the Pac 12 Al- Freshman Team. She was previously named the ECNL 17U National Player of the Year and a 2-time high school All American. She will have at least 2 years of eligibility at Colorado. Kotschau’s father is former Colorado Rapid defender Ritchie Kotschau. Kotschau was part of the deal that sent Carlos Valderrama to the Rapids in 2001 and played with hte team through the 2005 season before going on to captain the Columbus Crew.
Riley MacDonald (transfer from LSU). MacDonald played in 11 matches as a freshman at LSU. The Mountain Vista High School graduate competed for Colorado Rush at the club level and was Mountain Vista’s starting placekicker in 2023 — so if Deion Sanders needs a new kickoff specialist after the kickoff issues this past season, all he needs to do is log a call into Ms. MacDonald.
These five tranfsers will be joined by freshman signees Ruby Hayward (Mesa, Arizona), Maddie Sharrer (Pearl City, Hawaii), Viviana Zacarias (Lynwood, California), Sophia Zboyan (San Diego, California), and Chloe Zipprich (Evanston, Illinois).
How to watch in the near term?
The CU soccer team is playing a limited schedule this Spring. While Spring games are equal parts scrimmage and equal parts competitive game, the Buffs are currently 1-1-1 with Emerson Layne leading the team thus far. The Loveland, CO native scored 2 goals in a 3-1 victory at Air Force, and 1 goal in the Bufs’ 1-1 draw at Colorado State. Layne, a midfielder, will have an expanded role on the team this year with Hayward’s transfer out of the program. Transfer Reagan Kotschau also scored in the victory over Air Force.
CU also scrimmaged the Calgary Wild, a professional team playing in Canada’s Northern Super League. The Buffs lost 3-2, but Faith Leyba hit a bicycle kick that would make Pele proud for a goal.
Going forward, CU’s first home game will be April 5 against BYU at Prentup Field, with a matchp against the Nebraska Corndogs on April 13. Prentup Field will then host the Colorado Cup on April 26th with Denver, Colorado College, Air Force, Northern Colorado and UC-Coloardo Springs all competing throughout the day. All home matches this Spring are open to the public with free admission.