DENVER – MSU Denver got back on the winning track Friday night.
Decisively.
The Roadrunners – playing as Correcaminos on Hispanic Heritage Night – got goals from five different players to roll past New Mexico Highlands 5-0 and snap a three-game losing streak that came on the road against the teams projected to be the top three in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
"We talked this week about coming home, and how it was going to be a focus on ourselves," MSU Denver coach
Kat Mertz said. "We needed to solve some things, both defensively and on the attacking side.
"I'm happy with our overall response from some tough road games and we executed well."
Paloma Teran scored a breakaway goal in the eighth minute,
Kailey Maness scored off a corner kick in the 26
th, and then
Jordan Lewis scored on a penalty kick just under two minutes later.
Jaimy Sawaged's goal at 29:59 completed a three-goal in 4:08 barrage, and
Gabriella Gamboa scored at 71:21 to cap the scoring.
It was the third goal of the season for both Maness and Sawaged, while the others – all veterans -- scored for the first time in 2021.
Lewis is an anchor of the defense that allowed only one shot on goal as
Kylie Bach posted a shutout in her first career start. And it was big for both Teran and Gamboa – high scorers in previous seasons – to put shots in the back of the net.
"That's a huge weight off the backs of both of them," Mertz said. "And they were great goals."
MSU Denver improved to 6-4-2 overall and 5-0-1 at home, while Highlands dropped to 1-7 and 1-5.
The goal total and margin of victory were the best since an 8-0 win over Highlands on Sept. 20, 2019. MSU Denver had advantages of 20-1 in shots, 13-1 in shots on goal and 8-2 in corner kicks.
The Correcaminos improved to 3-4 in the RMAC to inch up to seventh in the table with nine points, and hope to make another move Sunday in a 1:30 p.m. matchup with Adams State (1-7-2, 0-4-2).
"This was a great game to get a lot of people minutes," Mertz said. "It was important to get the game-changers (key substitutes) some experience. Our depth will be the strongest point of our team."
