Cowgirl Soccer Top 20 Moments, 1996-2014

The Oklahoma State Cowgirl soccer program will mark its 20^th season in 2015. As we celebrate two decades of milestones, OSU head coach Colin Carmichael and assistant coach Karen Hancock, who each have been with the program since its inception and served stints as head coaches to help build the program into a national power, collaborated on a list of the top 20 moments in Cowgirl soccer history. Over the next month, we'll reveal their list (which is in no particular order) daily on www.okstate.com.

Nikki Wojtowicz scores golden goal in second overtime of 2003 Big 12 Championship title game to earn program's first-ever conference championship and NCAA Tournament berth

One of the most important games in OSU soccer history was also one of the most dramatic.

With just 72 seconds left in the second overtime, the 2003 Big 12 Conference Championship final looked like it was headed to a penalty kick shootout to determine a winner.

But Nikki Wojtowicz had other ideas as OSU's junior midfielder delivered a free kick from 20-yards out into the corner of net to give the Cowgirls a 3-2 win over Missouri.

The victory gave OSU its first-ever Big 12 championship and secured the first NCAA Tournament berth in program history. The Cowgirls entered the conference tourney as the No. 7 seed and knocked off second-seeded Texas, third-seeded Kansas and the eighth-seeded Tigers to claim the crown.

OSU trailed twice in the match, falling behind 1-0 early in the first half before a Marcela Nova goal tied it up in the 57^th minute. Mizzou went up 2-1 on a penalty kick goal in the 70^th minute before the Cowgirls' Jeré Boykin found the back of the net just under 10 minutes later to make it 2-2.

Statistically, the match favored OSU as the Cowgirls outshot the Tigers 29-17 and owned a 15-3 advantage on corner kicks.

Cowgirl goalie Kathrin Lehmann, the tourney's defensive MVP, recorded five saves in the match.

Colin Carmichael: "It was our third game in five days, and Nikki (Wojtowicz) was exhausted. You go into overtime in the final, and she was just dead on her feet so we'd actually subbed her out just to give her a five-minute breather, get some water in her and get her back in. Thankfully, we got her back in in time — we were subbing her back in so she could hit a penalty in a shootout because it looked like that's where it was going. Sure enough, we got a free kick, and she buried it.

"That was a terrific moment. It really got the program on the national radar. I think we'd improved to where regionally people knew we were good, but that goal projected us into the NCAA Tournament and made us even more visible."

Oklahoma State University Athletics

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