USL News Release

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

TAMPA, FL – United Soccer Leagues announced today the W-League Team of the Week for the final week of the regular season honoring Colorado’s Nikki Marshall as Player of the Week for her three goal performance in the Force’s two wins. The six points gained from the two wins was enough to send Colorado to the playoffs for the first time since 1998 when the Force won the W2 Championship.

In Los Angeles on Tuesday, July 14 Marshall tallied the first goal of the match in the 31st minute to give Colorado a 1-0 lead. Fellow Team of the Week nominee, Jocelyn Charette brought the Legends level in the 53rd minute on an assist by teammate Jenn Williams but Colorado fought back to retake the lead for good on Marshall’s second goal of the evening, in the 57th minute.

The following day, Wednesday, July 15, the Ventura County Fusion scored a 3-1 upset victory over then second-place Seattle to set the stage for Colorado to surpass the Sounders Women in the standings.

When the final whistle blew in Colorado’s 3-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps, Marshall had netted her third goal of the week, and Seattle had dropped a second straight match in California, this time to Los Angeles, 2-0. The aforementioned Charette netted the game-winner for the Legends in just the 25th minute to beat Seattle while in Colorado, Marshall was even quicker to score the game-winner over Vancouver in the 18th minute.

Up three points in the standings over Seattle, Colorado watched as the 2008 W-League Semifinalists dropped a third straight match, just their third loss of the season, 4-1 to the Pali Blues on Saturday, July 18. Due to a season-opening 1-0 loss to the Sounders, Colorado would have lost the tie-breaker if Seattle would have beaten Pali, but team of the Week member Jodi Taylor of the Blues made that a non-issue with her two goal game.