In last season’s College Cup final, penalty kicks were kind to Santa Clara. Unfortunately, they were cruel to the Broncos in their College Cup semis on Friday night versus BYU. Despite jumping out to a 1-0 lead, Santa Clara missed three of their next four penalty kicks to fall 3-2 to their league rivals.
It was a bittersweet end to Santa Clara’s season in front of a raucous home crowd of 7,600 that loudly supported their team all game at Buck Shaw Field at Stevens Stadium.
“Really proud of my team today. I thought they fought really hard,” said Broncos head coach Jerry Smith after the game. “BYU is such an unbelievable offensive powerhouse, and it’s amazing that we were able to shut them out twice.”
A scoreless 110 minutes
The league rivals played a tense and riveting match between the two sides with a trip to the NCAA championship game on the line. BYU had the better attack outshooting Santa Clara 26-13, but both teams had the same amount of shots on target, eight apiece.
Penalty Kicks decide the game
Santa Clara jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead behind Sally Menti’s conversion between two BYU misses. As the crowd exploded in anticipation of a Broncos return to the finals and a rematch with Florida State, the table quickly turned.
Nicole Sweeney and Kelsey Turnbow missed the subsequent successive attempts for Santa Clara to allow BYU to tie up the penalty kicks. Both BYU and Santa Clara made their fourth penalty kicks.
In the final frame, Olivia Wade converted for BYU. Then the Broncos’ Ellie Glenn stepped up to the spot, but her shot hit the right goal post. The home stadium went silent except for the pockets of BYU Cougars fans celebrating their victory along with the players on the field.
Broncos fall just short of a repeat title
It was a bittersweet end to Santa Clara’s season. They battled through a tough start facing off against a brutal out-of-conference schedule. They rebounded in league play to defeat BYU in the WCC to take the league title, booking an automatic ticket into the postseason tournament. The Broncos then beat Stanford, Georgetown, Wisconsin, and Duke to return to the College Cup, played on the Santa Clara campus. However, they came up just short of their ultimate goal, to repeat as champions in front of their fans.
“Penalty kicks it the way we decide our games,” noted Smith. “It’s wonderful when you win as we did in the national championship last year, and it’s really tough to lose on penalty kicks like we did today.”
