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Mr. 250: Winkworth earns career win No. 250 as ASU beats Denver

Two 80th-minute goals send Sun Devils past Pioneers, 3-1, on Sunday afternoon

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Mr. 250: Winkworth earns career win No. 250 as ASU beats DenverMr. 250: Winkworth earns career win No. 250 as ASU beats Denver
Emma Jeanson/Sun Devil Athletics
by Chris Brown

TEMPE, Ariz. – Coming into Sunday’s women’s soccer action, many knew what potentially awaited upon the conclusion of the 90-minute match. Arizona State head coach Graham Winkworth wasn’t one of those people until the final horn sounded on the Sun Devil’s 3-1 win. 

Winkworth, in the middle of his 23rd season, just earned his 250th career victory as a collegiate women’s soccer head coach. 

The win, though, did not come without late-game heroics. 

Tatum Thomason’s penalty kick at the 5-minute, 35-second mark of the first half – her second in as many matches and one that gave Arizona State a 1-0 lead – nearly stood for the duration of the match until Denver’s Brooke Ahern leveled the score with just 13 minutes left in the match. 

However, not even three minutes later, Izzy Monck, a senior defender out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, put a loose ball off a Addison Baltodano corner kick into the back of the net to give the Sun Devils a 2-1 advantage with less than 10 minutes to play. 

Sierra Bergen closed the door on any Pioneer come-from-behind effort as the sophomore out of Cultus Lake, British Columbia, Canada beat Denver’s goalkeeper following a pass from Ava Wright for ASU’s third goal of the match with less than five minutes on the clock. 

FROM HEAD COACH GRAHAM WINKWORTH

“I am delighted about today’s match. I thought the number one thing was the character the girls showed after Denver equalized – wonderful goal, by the way, when they equalized – by responding and that goes to show the type of people we have within this program. I hope it doesn’t take another 22 and a half years to get to the next 250 and I hope I’m a Sun Devil at that time, because I love it here. We have wonderful girls, wonderful staff, wonderful coaches I get to work with and most importantly wonderful players. I look forward to the next 250.”

FROM SENIOR DEFENDER IZZY MONCK

“The ball ended up coming for me and falling to me, so I flicked it into the back corner (of the net). But it was a great service by (Addison Baltodano) to get that ball in there. Ultimately, it’s just about fighting for each other and putting that one away.” 

 MATCH NOTES

  • With Tatum Thomason’s penalty kick less than six minutes into the match, it marks the first time Arizona State has converted penalty kicks in back-to-back matches since the 2021 season, when the Sun Devils did so in three straight matches against Texas Tech (Sept. 12), at Colorado College (Sept. 17) and at Washington (Sept. 24). It’s the first time the Sun Devils have converted a penalty kick in back-to-back home matches since Sept. 2 against CSUN and Sept. 5 versus LSU during the early stages of the 2021 campaign. 
  • By not allowing a goal over the course of the match’s first three minutes, Arizona State goalkeeper Pauline Nelles extended her consecutive minutes played without allowing a goal to over 340, which is a career high for the senior out of Bonn, Germany. 
  • As a result of holding Denver to zero goals throughout the match’s first half, Pauline Nelles has now recorded scoreless first halves in six of the Sun Devils’ first seven matches to begin the 2025 season. 
  • Pauline Nelles became just the fourth different goalkeeper in program history to surpass 400 consecutive minutes played without allowing a goal. Nelles is the first ASU goalkeeper to reach the mark since Briana Silvestri went for 417:55 from Sept. 5 to Sept. 19, 2008. 
  • The Arizona State offense was credited with 16 corner kicks throughout the 90-minute match, marking the most by the Sun Devils in a single game since Feb. 11, 2021, when ASU was credited with 17 at Grand Canyon. 

 UP NEXT

  • Arizona State (6-0-1) will return to the pitch at Sun Devil Soccer Stadium on Friday, Sept. 12, when the Sun Devils take on UTEP (3-4-1) at 7 p.m. AZT on ESPN+. The matchup between the Sun Devils and Miners will be the fourth match in a seven-match homestand for ASU. 

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