Women’s soccer forward Jennifer Mason has given the Red Storm bragging rights after she received the Pacific West Conference award.
Mason, a business major from Springville, has been selected as the Pacific West Conference Women’s Soccer Player of the Week. This award is for the third week of games in 2012 after standing out at the University of Hawaii at Hilo game. Mason scored the game-winning goal for that game. She also scored three other goals that were called back because of offside calls for DSC.
“It was tough,” Mason said. “We kept playing hard, but the refs were not really on our side. But we just kept working, and we were able to make [the win] happen.”
Along with Mason, senior goal keeper Abby Johnson is also another DSC threat.
“She has done a great job,” head coach Linda Huddleston said. “We had three games now with no goals.”
But the shutout was put to a stop after the 0-2 loss against BYU-Hawaii.
The loss affected the Red Storm and the losing streak continued as they faced a 1-0 loss to Hawai’i Pacific University.
Dixie is hoping to regain its momentum in its next game on Saturday against Grand Canyon University.
The Red Storm has played GCU in the past and beat this team last year 2-0. HPU is currently 2-2 in conference and 3-5 overall.
Huddleston said she knows what the team needs to work on, and DSC is trying to focus on the games ahead. She said the team’s objective is to score more than one goal each game and improve parts of the offense.
“One of our goals is to not be off sides,” Huddleston said. “That is something we need to work on.”
DSC had two previous games before playing UH-Hilo. Winning both of them helped them focus on the positives, and it impacted how the team has to play now.
“We had some hard times because we weren’t able to play our best,” Mason said. “But at least we were able to keep going and finish the games off.”
And in those moments, the team looks inward for support even before game time.
Mason said the team likes to get really loud and pump each other up before games.
The Red Storm play Grand Canyon University at 9 p.m. on Saturday in Phoenix.
