The Colorado women’s soccer team hasn’t been winning. But they haven’t really been losing, either.

One of the biggest perks in the transition to the Big 12 Conference is the addition of a league tournament to the ledger. It is a second chance for teams in the Buffaloes’ position — struggling, their NCAA Tournament chances dwindling, but still just a couple quality wins away from changing their fate.

In a competition that no longer can finish without a winner — the Buffs have gone 0-2-4 during a six-game winless streak, with scoreless draws in three of the past four games — CU will have the league’s top goalie in its corner in Jordan Nytes.

On Tuesday, Nytes won the Big 12’s goalkeeper of the year honor for the second time in three seasons, leading CU’s all-conference selections with a spot on the first team alongside teammate Faith Leyba.

Sophomore midfielder and Legacy graduate Juliauna Hayward was a second team selection, and forward Jace Holley was an All-Freshman honoree.

In another Tuesday update, the Big 12 also announced the kickoff time for the ninth-seeded Buffs against eight-seeded Utah on Wednesday has been moved up to 10:45 a.m. (ESPN+). The entire first round schedule was altered in an attempt to get the games in ahead of weather headed for Kansas City, Mo.

“She’s the best goalkeeper in the league. And one of the best goalkeepers in the country,” CU head coach Danny Sanchez said of Nytes. “It does give us confidence. But a shootout is literally a shootout. You never know.”

The Buffs, of course, hope to take care of business ahead of a potential shootout, but in order to do so they’ll have to score a goal. That hasn’t happened in more than four games, as the Buffs take a scoreless drought of 377 minutes, 22 seconds into the rematch against Utah, which finished the regular season with a scoreless draw at Prentup Field on Friday.

Nytes, who was the Big 12 co-winner of the goalie of the year at Oklahoma State in 2022, is a big reason why the Buffs have suffered only two losses during the six-game winless streak. With goals difficult to come by, Nytes has needed to be on-point and has responded. The scoreless tie with Utah was Nytes’ 11th shutout of the season, tying the second-highest season total in team history. She has won the Big 12’s goalie of the week honor five times this season.

“There’s more pressure for sure, knowing we’re right on the verge of putting a bunch of goals in,” Nytes said. “We just have to make sure we’re staying super-tight defensively. The margin for error is definitely way smaller. We have to do whatever we can to give our forwards and our midfielders the best chances to score. Definitely pressure, but I like the pressure. I think it makes me play better. I kind of try to give that confidence to the back line and just try to get everybody going from there.”

Sanchez has coached in conference tournaments before, during stints at Wyoming and Metro State, but noted his team’s bubble status makes it an entirely different situation. In the Mountain West tourney, it essentially was a win-or-go-home competition in a one-bid league. And Sanchez’s Metro State teams typically had bids to the Division II tournament locked up going into the league tournaments.

Thanks to the late slide, the Buffs (10-3-5, 4-2-5 Big 12) have slipped to No. 62 in the RPI, with the best win on the ledger occurring more than a month ago at No. 30 RPI Oklahoma State.

“This is a second chance at life. Like I told the team, it really is like the NCAA Tournament,” Sanchez said. “Maybe the results haven’t been what we wanted, but now somebody’s going to have to beat us. And that hasn’t happened but three times in 18 games this year. We have another opportunity, another life, and we’re excited for Wednesday.”