EL PASO, Texas – The UTEP soccer team head into the Conference USA tournament against a familiar opponent in Colorado College at 11 a.m. MT Nov. 2 in Memphis. The Miners suffered a 1-0 defeat to the Tigers when they last played this past weekend at University Field.

The Miners go into the tournament as the number seven seed, and have a relatively easy side of the bracket, but it will be a task to get through Colorado College first. It is an important game that UTEP needs to win or a defeat will end their season, and head coach Kevin Cross knows how important this game really is.

“It’s the start of a new season, and if we want to keep playing we need to get a result,” Cross said.

The Miners will need to take their chances if they hope to defeat Colorado College because they have struggled at times this season to convert their chances at goal. UTEP will need to play their attacking style of soccer and force Colorado College to defend the many attacking options that the Miners posses.

UTEP has not won a game since Oct. 7 and will need to step up their game if the Miners want to avoid an early exit. Luckily for the Miners, they played a very tight game against Colorado College and, according to Cross, that should help UTEP out.

“We had an opportunity to learn from that experience playing them last Friday,” Cross said. “We need to finish the opportunities, and I think each and everyone of us needs to be a little bit better this time.”

This will be the fourth time UTEP faces Colorado College in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament with the Tigers owning a 2-1 advantage over the Miners. UTEP will be looking to its leading scorer, junior forward Brittany Kindzierski, to help pull the Miners through to the next round of the tournament.

“I think she has to be one of the best attackers in the whole conference, and if she plays with the confidence she has been playing with I think she’ll be a huge offensive threat for us,” Cross said.

Kindzierski has led started all twenty games this season, scoring eight goals and notching three assists in 2011. Kindzierski is a threat that Colorado College will have to address, but the Miners will also need to rely on freshman goalkeeper Sarah Dilling. She is second in saves in C-USA and has only allowed one goal or less in seven out of the twenty games. Dilling plays a commanding game in the box and is part of the spine of this UTEP squad.

On the other side, Colorado College goes into this game averaging one and a half goals per game and comes into this game with some momentum winning their last three games including one against UTEP. Sophomore forward Lauren Digregorio leads the Tigers with seven goals and four assists and can be very hard to guard.

The Miners will have to do well to get past Hanna Berglund who has recorded nine clean sheets this season and saves about eighty percent of shots hit towards goal.

This is the Miners chance to make up for a less than stellar end to their season, and a chance to make a deep run in the conference tournament. If the Miners can somehow take their opportunities and turn them into goals they will have an excellent shot at advancing to the next round. This young team will need to buckle down and make the most of what is given to them.

Gus Contreras may be reached at show@minerillustrated.com or on Twitter at @GusContreras21.