November 09, 2026 | Soccer
BOULDER โ Reagan Kotschau didn't know she'd broken Colorado's single-season assists record until she came off the field.
By then, she'd helped set up goals for Jace Holley and Faith Leyba, scored one of her own, and watched the Buffaloes build a 5-0 Senior Night victory over Oklahoma State. Somewhere amid the goals and celebrations, a teammate had to tell her what she'd done.
"I didn't even realize," Kotschau said the next day.
The record was hers: 12 assists, more than any Colorado player had recorded in a season. With 10 goals, she had also become the first Buff to reach double figures in both categories in the same year. Yet when she talked about it after the match, her first instinct was to share the credit.
"I couldn't have gotten the assist record without the people who score the goals," she said. "Our team is basically just one big family, and we really just play for each other."
"She was fantastic tonight, and she's been great all year," head coach Danny Sanchez said after the Oklahoma State win. "I think she still has even more in her."
For Kotschau, the more meaningful part of the night might have been everyone who helped her get there.
Her parents, Richie and Meredith, were at Prentup Field for the Senior Night ceremony. So was her sister, four years younger, who had been less concerned about the match than about how Reagan planned to wear her hair for their family photographs. Richie cracked jokes while they waited in line for the Senior Night ceremony. Meredith told her daughter she was proud of her.
"Having them there is so amazing, and just having that connection before the game, I feel like just kind of lifted some pressure off my shoulders where I could just have fun and play in front of them," Kotschau said.
It was the sort of exchange Kotschau had grown up with, but hadn't always been able to enjoy before a college game.
Soccer was a family language long before Reagan knew she wanted to speak it. Her parents met as players at George Mason University. As the story has been told to her, they first got to know each other in an ice bath. Richie later played professionally in Major League Soccer and made appearances with the U.S. national team. Meredith finished her playing career after college.
For their daughters, though, the sport was an option, not an obligation.
Reagan tried swimming, tennis, softball, and basketball. Soccer was the one that kept bringing her back. She remembers orange slices at halftime during her first years playing in Broomfield, chasing a ball in the backyard, and her father pretending to be a goalkeeper in the basement.
Her younger sister gave her someone to compete against. Some arguments were about soccer; others started over who got more whipped cream with their bowl of strawberries their mom made for them. Reagan remembers chasing her sister around the house after her sister took her bowl. As they got older, competition turned into extra workouts together.
And her parents kept showing up. They drove her to club practices in Parker and Littleton, helped her find teams that challenged her, and gave her room to choose how seriously she wanted to pursue the game.
"Every time I play, I just hope I make them proud and hope they see it as worth it," Kotschau said.
Still, growing up also meant testing what she could do away from them. When she committed to Washington State, she wanted to experience life outside Colorado.
That first summer in Pullman, her parents moved her into her dorm. They stayed at a hotel five minutes away, but Reagan remembers sitting alone in her room, already wondering what would happen when they went home.
"My parents were just in a hotel room, like five minutes away," Kotschau said. "What am I gonna do when they go back to Colorado?"
She learned to navigate college on her own. Teammates became friends, routines became familiar, and the distance gradually felt normal. Then, at the end of her freshman season, her parents and sister surprised her at a match at Washington.
She hadn't seen them in months, and she was overwhelmed with joy.
"They surprised me, my mom, my dad, and my sister," Kotschau said. "I was crying because I hadn't seen them all year, and it was just super, super awesome, and it just made me realize how much I missed them."
The visit stayed with her, not because she hadn't adjusted to being away, but because she finally understood what she had been missing. By her sophomore year, she had found the independence she went looking for. She also knew how much being close to family mattered.
When she considered transferring after two seasons without reaching the postseason at Washington State, she wanted a program that could push her and give her the opportunity to compete for championships. Colorado offered both.
"I just thought I could get better going somewhere else, and I wanted to play in the postseason and have a conference tournament and just play more soccer," Kotschau said.
The move also brought back people from different parts of her soccer life. Longtime club teammate Caley Swierenga was heading to Boulder, too. The two talked before committing, and Michaela McGowan, another familiar face from their Colorado club years, would later join them.
On the field, Kotschau found a new level of competition in training. Off it, her parents could attend games regularly, and her grandparents could watch her play. Being close to home no longer felt like the opposite of growing up.
"Now I get to play in front of them, and they get to come to every single game, and my grandparents get to come as well," Kotschau said. "And then I came here, and I found myself in an environment that pushes me, where the coaching staff cares for me and wants me to do better."
Now, in her second season as a Buff, Kotschau sees her experience from another side. She watches younger players experience the moments she once chased herself.
Senior Night offered one of those moments. Freshman Sloane Phillips scored and assisted on two goals in the first half, tying Colorado's freshman single-season assists record with seven. Kotschau had her own historic performance, but she spoke just as warmly about seeing Phillips and other younger teammates succeed.
"It does get emotional, especially in those moments where you're scoring goals, and you're assisting, and then you see the younger players also succeeding," Kotschau said. "It's just kind of just like a full circle moment where you see yourself in these younger players, and then your time's kind of coming to an end."
There is also a perspective she didn't have when she first arrived in college: a bad game isn't the whole story, and a great one isn't either. Kotschau credits Colorado's coaches and teammates with helping her see beyond the immediate result.
She has come to believe, as she put it, that "there is always something bigger than soccer." "You play for something bigger than yourself, and you're part of this community," Kotschau said.
It doesn't mean the games matter less. It means she understands who she's playing them with and who she's playing them for.
That perspective came with Colorado to Mansfield, Texas, for the Big 12 Tournament.
The fourth-seeded Buffaloes (15-4-1, 8-3-0 Big 12) opened the tournament with a 2-1 comeback win over fifth-seeded Kansas on Monday, Nov. 9, at Texas Health Mansfield Stadium. Kotschau scored the winner in the final two minutes, sending Colorado to Wednesday's semifinals. The Jayhawks had beaten Colorado in last year's conference semifinals and handed the Buffs a 1-0 loss in Boulder this October.
Kotschau remembered both games, and before the tournament, she made clear she wasn't interested in treating it as a victory lap for her record-setting season.
"We don't just want to win two games," she said Friday. "We want to be champions of the Big 12. That's our goal."
It is the kind of opportunity she wanted when she made the decision to come home: more meaningful games, more chances to grow and a team capable of chasing something together.
On Senior Night, somebody else, a teammate, had to tell Kotschau what she'd accomplished.
UP NEXT:ย Colorado will face top-seeded BYU in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals Wednesday, Nov. 11, at Texas Health Mansfield Stadium in Mansfield, Texas. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. MT on ESPN+.
SOCIALS:ย For more information on Colorado Soccer, please visitย cubuffs.com/soccer. Fans of the Buffs can follow @cubuffssoccer onย Instagram,ย X,ย TikTok, andย Facebook.
By then, she'd helped set up goals for Jace Holley and Faith Leyba, scored one of her own, and watched the Buffaloes build a 5-0 Senior Night victory over Oklahoma State. Somewhere amid the goals and celebrations, a teammate had to tell her what she'd done.
"I didn't even realize," Kotschau said the next day.
The record was hers: 12 assists, more than any Colorado player had recorded in a season. With 10 goals, she had also become the first Buff to reach double figures in both categories in the same year. Yet when she talked about it after the match, her first instinct was to share the credit.
"I couldn't have gotten the assist record without the people who score the goals," she said. "Our team is basically just one big family, and we really just play for each other."
"She was fantastic tonight, and she's been great all year," head coach Danny Sanchez said after the Oklahoma State win. "I think she still has even more in her."
For Kotschau, the more meaningful part of the night might have been everyone who helped her get there.
Her parents, Richie and Meredith, were at Prentup Field for the Senior Night ceremony. So was her sister, four years younger, who had been less concerned about the match than about how Reagan planned to wear her hair for their family photographs. Richie cracked jokes while they waited in line for the Senior Night ceremony. Meredith told her daughter she was proud of her.
"Having them there is so amazing, and just having that connection before the game, I feel like just kind of lifted some pressure off my shoulders where I could just have fun and play in front of them," Kotschau said.
It was the sort of exchange Kotschau had grown up with, but hadn't always been able to enjoy before a college game.
Soccer was a family language long before Reagan knew she wanted to speak it. Her parents met as players at George Mason University. As the story has been told to her, they first got to know each other in an ice bath. Richie later played professionally in Major League Soccer and made appearances with the U.S. national team. Meredith finished her playing career after college.
For their daughters, though, the sport was an option, not an obligation.
Reagan tried swimming, tennis, softball, and basketball. Soccer was the one that kept bringing her back. She remembers orange slices at halftime during her first years playing in Broomfield, chasing a ball in the backyard, and her father pretending to be a goalkeeper in the basement.
Her younger sister gave her someone to compete against. Some arguments were about soccer; others started over who got more whipped cream with their bowl of strawberries their mom made for them. Reagan remembers chasing her sister around the house after her sister took her bowl. As they got older, competition turned into extra workouts together.
And her parents kept showing up. They drove her to club practices in Parker and Littleton, helped her find teams that challenged her, and gave her room to choose how seriously she wanted to pursue the game.
"Every time I play, I just hope I make them proud and hope they see it as worth it," Kotschau said.
Still, growing up also meant testing what she could do away from them. When she committed to Washington State, she wanted to experience life outside Colorado.
That first summer in Pullman, her parents moved her into her dorm. They stayed at a hotel five minutes away, but Reagan remembers sitting alone in her room, already wondering what would happen when they went home.
"My parents were just in a hotel room, like five minutes away," Kotschau said. "What am I gonna do when they go back to Colorado?"
She learned to navigate college on her own. Teammates became friends, routines became familiar, and the distance gradually felt normal. Then, at the end of her freshman season, her parents and sister surprised her at a match at Washington.
She hadn't seen them in months, and she was overwhelmed with joy.
"They surprised me, my mom, my dad, and my sister," Kotschau said. "I was crying because I hadn't seen them all year, and it was just super, super awesome, and it just made me realize how much I missed them."
The visit stayed with her, not because she hadn't adjusted to being away, but because she finally understood what she had been missing. By her sophomore year, she had found the independence she went looking for. She also knew how much being close to family mattered.
When she considered transferring after two seasons without reaching the postseason at Washington State, she wanted a program that could push her and give her the opportunity to compete for championships. Colorado offered both.
"I just thought I could get better going somewhere else, and I wanted to play in the postseason and have a conference tournament and just play more soccer," Kotschau said.
The move also brought back people from different parts of her soccer life. Longtime club teammate Caley Swierenga was heading to Boulder, too. The two talked before committing, and Michaela McGowan, another familiar face from their Colorado club years, would later join them.
On the field, Kotschau found a new level of competition in training. Off it, her parents could attend games regularly, and her grandparents could watch her play. Being close to home no longer felt like the opposite of growing up.
"Now I get to play in front of them, and they get to come to every single game, and my grandparents get to come as well," Kotschau said. "And then I came here, and I found myself in an environment that pushes me, where the coaching staff cares for me and wants me to do better."
Now, in her second season as a Buff, Kotschau sees her experience from another side. She watches younger players experience the moments she once chased herself.
Senior Night offered one of those moments. Freshman Sloane Phillips scored and assisted on two goals in the first half, tying Colorado's freshman single-season assists record with seven. Kotschau had her own historic performance, but she spoke just as warmly about seeing Phillips and other younger teammates succeed.
"It does get emotional, especially in those moments where you're scoring goals, and you're assisting, and then you see the younger players also succeeding," Kotschau said. "It's just kind of just like a full circle moment where you see yourself in these younger players, and then your time's kind of coming to an end."
There is also a perspective she didn't have when she first arrived in college: a bad game isn't the whole story, and a great one isn't either. Kotschau credits Colorado's coaches and teammates with helping her see beyond the immediate result.
She has come to believe, as she put it, that "there is always something bigger than soccer." "You play for something bigger than yourself, and you're part of this community," Kotschau said.
It doesn't mean the games matter less. It means she understands who she's playing them with and who she's playing them for.
That perspective came with Colorado to Mansfield, Texas, for the Big 12 Tournament.
The fourth-seeded Buffaloes (15-4-1, 8-3-0 Big 12) opened the tournament with a 2-1 comeback win over fifth-seeded Kansas on Monday, Nov. 9, at Texas Health Mansfield Stadium. Kotschau scored the winner in the final two minutes, sending Colorado to Wednesday's semifinals. The Jayhawks had beaten Colorado in last year's conference semifinals and handed the Buffs a 1-0 loss in Boulder this October.
Kotschau remembered both games, and before the tournament, she made clear she wasn't interested in treating it as a victory lap for her record-setting season.
"We don't just want to win two games," she said Friday. "We want to be champions of the Big 12. That's our goal."
It is the kind of opportunity she wanted when she made the decision to come home: more meaningful games, more chances to grow and a team capable of chasing something together.
On Senior Night, somebody else, a teammate, had to tell Kotschau what she'd accomplished.
UP NEXT:ย Colorado will face top-seeded BYU in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals Wednesday, Nov. 11, at Texas Health Mansfield Stadium in Mansfield, Texas. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. MT on ESPN+.
SOCIALS:ย For more information on Colorado Soccer, please visitย cubuffs.com/soccer. Fans of the Buffs can follow @cubuffssoccer onย Instagram,ย X,ย TikTok, andย Facebook.
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