DENVER - The University of Denver men's soccer team completed its run of exhibition games Sunday, defeating CU-Colorado Springs, 4-0 at Pioneer Field. After a scoreless first half of play, the Pioneers came out clicking on all cylinders in the second half and buried the Mountain Lions with three goals in the span of less than six minutes to win going away. They open regular season play next Friday when they travel to Kansas City, Mo., to play UMKC in the Missouri-Kansas City Classic.
After an uneventful and scoreless first half of play, head coach Chad Ashton gave his players an earful at halftime and their play improved dramatically. "I was disappointed in the first half," he said. "We had no intensity and played the game much too slow. We were allowing them to get back to defend us and I told them they needed to jack up the intensity in the second half."
The pep talk seemed to do the trick, as junior forward Matt Harrell (Littleton, Colo.) put the Pioneers on the board just three minutes into the second half on a pass from junior RJ Smith (Cross Valley, Calif.) to give DU a 1-0 lead. Just four minutes later, senior Nate Ficklin (Littleton, Colo.) added to the Denver lead on a pass from junior Michael Piserchio (Littleton, Colo.) to give them a 2-0 lead.
Denver was not finished in their scoring barrage to open the second half. Exactly one minute following Ficklin's goal, sophomore Nic Hartman (Littleton, Colo.) put in a goal of his own on another assist from Smith to give the Pioneers a commanding, 3-0 lead just 7:01 into the second half. DU's final goal came from freshman Lukas Dora (Lednice, Czech Republic), who took a loose ball in front of the Mountain Lion net and put it home for DU's fourth and final goal.
"We came out in the second half with much more intensity and I liked the way we played," Ashton said. "I think the guys realize after today that they need to show up from the start of the game or we will be playing from behind a lot."
The Pioneers open the regular season Friday, Sept. 1 at the Missouri-Kansas City Classic when they take on the host team, UMKC beginning at 3:00 p.m. Their home season begins Oct. 1 when they face Cal Poly at 1:00 p.m.
