SAN DIEGO – The reigning Mountain West regular season champion San Diego State women’s soccer team began this year’s conference play on Thursday night when it welcomed the Nevada Wolf Pack (2-8) to the SDSU Sports Deck. The Aztecs got off to a hot start in Mountain West competition as Denise Castro had a brace while Trinity Coker, Mia Lane and Boston Girman each scored their first goals of the season and Alexa Madueno shut out the Wolf Pack offense in a 5-0 victory.
The Scarlet and Black (3-5-1) got on the board early thanks to a Denise Castro goal in the 11th minute with assists by Olivia Sekimoto and Emma Gaines-Ramos. The rest of the first half was quiet with Aztec keeper Madueno making a pair of saves just a couple of minutes later and Kali Trevithick and Castro each having shots on goal saved by Nevada goalie Mia Collins as neither team scored a goal. SDSU carried a 1-0 lead into the halftime break and looked to extend its 14-match winning streak when leading at the half.
Just 5:40 into the second half, Castro struck again for her second goal of the match and second brace of the season. Again, it came on a pair of assists including Gaines-Ramos, with Logan Nidy making the other pass to set up the goal. After two more Madueno saves in the 56th and 67th minutes, the Aztecs added on. Trinity Coker fired a rocket for her first goal of the season in the 71st minute. Gaines-Ramos was assessed a yellow card just a minute later. SDSU forced three more saves between the 76th and 79th minutes.
Up three goals with ten minutes remaining, the Aztecs started to bring in reserves but that didn’t mean that SDSU was done scoring. In the 83rd minute, Riley Gumm picked up her first career assist when she found Mia Lane for her first collegiate goal. Just for good measure, Boston Girman joined the club with her first career goal, assisted by Lane, as the Aztecs closed out a 5-0 shutout win.
San Diego State finished the match with more shots (23-14), shots on goal (12-6) and corners (7-3) while Nevada made one more save (7-6).
Castro’s second brace of the season moved her into a tie for second in the Mountain West with six goals. She leads SDSU in goals (5) and points (11) this season. The performance also bumped Castro up the career leaderboards for goals and points. In her career, she is up to 72 points, passing Aliyah Utush for sixth on the program rankings, while her two goals push her to 30, jumping Hannah Keane for fifth in school history.
Madueno totaled six saves on the night to become the first Aztec to reach the 350 saves plateau. Her second shutout of the season is the 24th of her career, which moves her past Katherine Judkins to third on the program leaderboard. Madueno trails just Melanie Vaughn (25.5) and Aubree Southwick (26).
Lane joins Alexyz Nakamoto as the second freshman to score for San Diego State this season. The pair are the first two Aztec freshmen to score in the same season since 2021, when Castro had eight goals and Alexys Ocampo scored once.
With her first goal of the season, Coker scored for the first time since SDSU battled the Wolf Pack last season. In addition, Coker had an assist against Nevada as a freshman as she has now tallied five points in four regular season matches against the team from Reno.
Girman scored her goal on just her second career shot and first on goal. After redshirting in 2022, she played 54 minutes across seven matches last season with her shot coming against Wyoming.
San Diego State wraps up this lengthy homestand when it faces UNLV on Sunday at noon on the SDSU Sports Deck. Admission is free and the match will be streamed on the Mountain West Network.