Hockey, Men's Soccer, Volleyball, Women's Soccer

DU Soccer Teams Continue to Struggle, Volleyball Rebounds, and Hockey Championship Rings Delivered

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Men’s and women’s soccer are usually solid if not outstanding teams for Denver. Yet, through the early portion of nonconference play, both teams are in a tailspin. The sides went 0-2 on the week, outscored 11-0. They were outshot 49-8, with 28 of those on goal to a mere 4 for Denver. Both losses came on the road, with Denver losing 5-0 to West Virginia, and the women falling 6-0 to Colorado in Boulder.

Both teams are struggling to score and have trouble defending – a double whammy. The women are scoring under a goal per game (.57) and giving up 1.57 goals per game. DU men are scoring a goal per game but allowing 2.57 goals per game. The men have 11 days to address the issues before facing a solid Creighton team September 22nd. The women face the Air Force at Pioneer Field on Thursday at 7:00 pm MT.

What is the problem? It is hard to identify a single issue. Like most sports teams in a slump, turnarounds usually start on the defensive end. And it only gets tougher when conference play begins in several weeks.

Women’s volleyball (6-3) went 1-2 this week, winning the final match of the Tarleton State Tournament. Denver was edged 3-2 in the first two matches by Texas A&M Corpus Christi and Tarleton State. Denver rebounded with a sweep of Sam Houston State. Hailey Goebel led DU with 13 kills, Eren Llayda added 18 assists, and Madison Winkler gathered 16 digs in the win against Sam Houston. Next up: Air Force on Wednesday at 7:00 pm MT at Hamilton Gym.

DU hockey players and staff unboxed their 2026 National Championship rings last week. A hockey donor hosted the event at Jacks. The ring features nods to DU’s 11 championships, Las Vegas as the 2026 Frozen Four host, and their impressive run over the second half of the 2025-26 season.

One thought on “DU Soccer Teams Continue to Struggle, Volleyball Rebounds, and Hockey Championship Rings Delivered”

  1. The M and W soccer problems are really puzzling, as we have not seem these kinds of drastically negative goal disparities in recent memory for either program. Granted, these are good teams DU is playing and usually on the road, which explains some of it, but the blowouts are revealing that the problems are core to the talent and desire level in lineups they are fielding, which of course, also leads, at some level to recruiting and development issues.

    Jeff Hooker was coach for 31 years at DU before leaving in 2023, with 23 conference titles (league and tourney titles) and 11 NCAA appearances, including a Sweet 16 run in 2012, the high water mark for the program. Since then, the women’s program has been decent, with Julianne Sitch since taking over three years ago, going 30-16-15, but with only one Summit League co-title (in 2025) to show for it and no NCAA appearances. Clearly, the standard has fallen somewhat from the Hooker era, and with new entry into WCC, NCAA appearances seem destined to be rare in the future. It’s still early to call the Sitch era a failure, but the program appears to be drifting far from the standards it once had.

    For the men Jamie Franks is one of the best coaches in NCAA soccer. Franks entered the 2026 season with an elite 136-46-36 (.706) overall record across his first 11 seasons at Denver, including 17 league and conference tourney titles, NCAA appearances in 9 of his 11 seasons and two College Cup appearances where his DU teams lost in extra time to the eventual NCAA title winner. His record, his fearlessness in scheduling and his championship pedigree & consistency have given him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this team, but I am sure he’s not happy with what we’ve seen on the field this season. Let’s hope he figures it out, but this is a very weird year so far…

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