Not Yet the Best, but Cowgirls Defense and Goalkeeper are Really Good
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State returns home on Thursday night (Sept. 29) for just their fourth home match of the season and their first in Big 12 play as Texas Tech comes to town. As head coach Colin Carmichael said to the media the day before, the Red Raiders have been an interesting opponent for the Cowgirls. Last season they played to two draws, 1-1 in overtime in Lubbock and then a scoreless result in the Big 12 Championship Tournament.
“Their staff and ours are very close,” Carmichael said. “They are good people and great coaches. They are 4-3-4 on the season and had trouble scoring early in the season, but they’ve rectified that.”
Maybe so but coming to Stillwater is a good place to enter a scoring drought. Oklahoma State is 9-1-1 on the season, 2-0-0 in the Big 12. The Cowgirls have shut out their last three opponents and they have a second in the nation eight shut outs overall. It prompted me to ask Carmichael, who has always stressed defense in the program if this is a best ever defense for the Cowgirls?
“No, I think we have to play some more tough competition,” Carmichael answered honestly. “They are playing very well defensively, I will say that. I think we’ve had teams in the past that played tougher non-conference opponents that got tested a little more, but yeah, if they continue doing what they’ve been doing for another couple of weeks then I think we can have that conversation.”
Part of it is the freshman goalkeeper from Aurora, Colo. and Grandview High School Jordan Nytes. Just a freshman and she has been the Big 12’s Goalkeeper of the Week the past two weeks. In the Cowgirls home match with Mercer, a team that was eighth in the NCAA in scoring averaging over three goals a game, Nytes and the Cowgirls held the Bears to one goal in a 3-1 win.
Last week on the road at Kansas and Kansas State, Nytes had her second and third shutouts in a row. She has five on the season, but is a big part of the other three team shutouts that has Oklahoma State second in the nation in that category. Nytes has played 935-of-990 minutes in goal so far this season and has allowed four goals. Her per game average of 0.36 goals is best in the Big 12 and eighth in the NCAA. Her save percentage of .895 is 16th in the NCAA. She had a season high 12 saves at Kansas.
“First of all she is playing very well right now,” Carmichael said of Nytes. “We knew that she was a very good goalkeeper, but yes, I’d say she is playing above the level I would have thought right now. We saw glimpses of it in training, but when she started to get tested in competition then we saw what she really could do. I think the area where she is further ahead is taking balls out of the air. She is special. She is up there with the best.”
Nytes is very mature and she doesn’t seem surprised at how well she is playing at this level and how fast it has happened.
“The Kansas game, I think was definitely the one that sticks out to me,” Nytes said of her shutouts. “I think that game was in our defensive half a lot. I think we had to push through and get that shut out together.”
Nytes is humble, but she is so good. She can stifle an opposing offense. Her defenders help, the whole team and Carmichael says they have all bought in.
“It’s a willingness. You have to be willing to work,” Carmichael said of the defense overall. “It is not the fun part of the game. The fun is passing and dribbling and scoring. Playing defense is work. The want to and the work ethic they are applying to the defense is awesome.”
The Texas Tech match begins at 7 p.m. at Neal Patterson Satdium.