Denver 1-0 South Dakota (Adler 38’)

DENVER – The University of Denver women’s soccer team got a first half goal from freshman Hannah Adler (Oak Park, Calif.), her third of the campaign, and kept its third cleansheet of the season to remain perfect in Summit League play with a 1-0 win over South Dakota on Sunday afternoon at CIBER Field at the University of Denver Soccer Stadium.

“Obviously we’ll take the win and are very happy about the result, but I thought we made a few too many mistakes today,” head coach Jeff Hooker said. “We gave their forwards way too much room to check back and looked sloppy at times in the back. Even with our mistakes today though, we didn’t give away any great chances, maybe a couple half ones, but our keepers did a good job of keeping the cleansheet.

“We have to do a little bit better in the final 10 minutes. We didn’t have to play on Friday, and they did, and we looked like the team that was dragging at the end. We need to work a little harder to close games like this out and get that second goal.”

Denver (5-7-0, 3-0-0 Summit) is currently tied atop the Summit League table with South Dakota State thru three matches.

Adler’s second career game-winning goal came right on 38 minutes to give the Pioneers the first half breakthrough. Junior forward Angelica Pacheco (Taos, N.M.) and sophomore outside back Mary DeWalt (West Bend, Wis.) combined down the right to setup the goal. Pacheco played in the cross just outside the six yard box that Adler deflected into the bottom left corner of the net.

DU outshot South Dakota (2-12-1, 1-3-0 Summit) 10-7, including 6-3 in the opening 45 minutes. The Pioneers also took five of the match’s eight corners, with four of Denver’s five coming in the second half.

Senior goalkeeper Cassidy Rey (Arcadia, Calif.) and freshman Brittany Wilson (Littleton, Colo.) split time in goal once again for Denver, making two and three saves, respectively.