BOULDER — With the Leybas “twinning” teams, CU soccer’s been racking up wins.
Identical twins Hope and Faith Leyba have been driving forces in three straight NCAA Tournament appearances for the Buffs, who take on Utah Valley in the first round at 7 p.m. Friday at Prentup Field in Boulder. The unbreakable bond between Hope, a forward, and Faith, a defender, has been an X-factor in the sisters’ on-pitch relationship from a young age.
“Growing up, we would have this saying that we just ‘twinned’ the other team because I would score and Faith would block every shot, and that’s how we would win,” Hope Leyba said. “It’s harder to do that (at the Division I level), but it still happens.”
Just ask the Arizona Wildcats, who got “twinned” by the juniors in the Buffs’ regular-season home finale on Oct. 26.
On the drive to the field ahead of that game, Faith vowed to Hope that if she had the chance, should would pass to Hope to give her an opportunity to break CU’s single-season record for goals scored.
Faith delivered on her promise. Off a free kick just past midfield by Caley Swierenga midway through the first half, Faith streaked into the left side of the box, jumped and centered the ball off her thigh. The ball then deflected off the hands of the Arizona keeper, and Hope was there for the finish on the other side of the net in CU’s 1-0 victory.
That gave Hope goal No. 18 on the year, and heading into the NCAA Tournament opener, she’s increased her record tally to 21. Meanwhile, Faith has again been a pillar at center-back for the Buffs after a first-team All-Big 12 performance in 2024.
“From two goals as a freshman to 21 this year, Hope’s bought into the coaching, she’s added intricacies to her game, added moves on the wide space, she’s added creativity in the box,” CU head coach Danny Sanchez said. “Faith in the back, she’s been a 90-minute player since the first practice. It wasn’t hard to see that. But her communication has really improved, as has her leadership in the back and the communication in the back.”
Twinning teams in black and gold started early for the Leybas, who both scored in their fifth game together as freshmen in 2023 and have been CU stars ever since. The sisters even scored in the same minute of a match this season, when Faith found the net in CU’s 2-2 tie against BYU on Oct. 21, and Hope scored 39 seconds later. The No. 44-to-No. 45 connection temporarily gave CU the lead.
The duo’s dominance helped CU (15-3-3) earn a No. 3 seed in the tournament amid a record-breaking season that saw the Buffs set program records in goals (52), assists (58) and points (162). If CU beats Utah Valley, the Buffs are guaranteed at least one more home game against either Dayton or Xavier on Nov. 20. Leyba is ranked second in the NCAA in goals scored, just behind Utah Valley forward Faith Webber’s mark of 22.
Sanchez says the intensity and competitiveness the Leybas bring to the pitch every day is unmatched, and that usually “we have to dial them back in training.”
“(Tuesday) in training, we had some of our male practice players out and one was playing up top, and Faith is chasing him down, slide tackling him like it’s the Final Four,” Sanchez said with a laugh. “I’m blowing the whistle over and over to have her stop. … Same with Hope. If we played soccer tennis today, you’d think it was Wimbledon. It’s their mindset — they can’t help themselves.”
That mindset can be traced back to backyard soccer sessions at the sisters’ childhood home in Phoenix. Their dad, Joe Leyba, said that playing against their older brother Jackson, who “took no mercy on them,” sharpened their aggressiveness from a young age.
“The backyard was like a war zone,” Joe said. “Jackson, who is two years older, he was known for kicking the ball really hard and far, and kids used to call him ‘The Foot.’ So the girls would go up against him, and they both had to be really intense in order to compete with him. If I walked out there in the backyard while they were playing, I had to keep my eyes open for balls zinging around that might hit me in the head.”
The backyard sessions translated to the twins’ recreational church league that they played in throughout elementary school.
Faith slide tackled so hard, and so often, that coaches in that league pleaded for her to stop. When she finally laid off for a few games, the coaches named her the most improved player of the week. It was a similar story for Hope, whom the rec coaches labeled a ball-hog, even though she was the best pure scorer in the league.
By the time the twins finally joined a club in Royals Arizona, their coach Tiffany Roberts inherited two raw, talented players — who had no idea how to pass. As Roberts set about honing that skill, she put the sisters on opposite ends of the pitch. In rec ball, both sisters played forward.
“Their instinct out there has always been to seek and destroy,” Roberts said. “So it was like, if we have one in the back and one up top, I thought that would be quite a duo. And it was.”
Like Sanchez, Roberts struggled to dial the twins back, especially when they went against each other in training.
“I’d be on the sideline (thinking to myself), ‘Please don’t hurt each other,’” Roberts said. “I saw it in training a million times. Hard slide tackles into each other. … It’s hard to slow them down. There were a few times I had to be like, ‘Hey, you two — chill on each other. You’re both good. Both so competitive. Like, we get it.’”
It was that intangible, on top of talent, that made the Leybas sought-after high school recruits. When schools were finally able to officially contact the twins following their sophomore year, they had over a dozen calls with Division I coaches within the first few weeks.
The sisters’ first official visit was to Boulder, where their parents met while in pharmaceutical school in the late 1990s. CU offered the twins on the spot, and despite a suggestion from Joe that the girls take their time, they committed to the Buffs via a phone call with Sanchez at the airport before flying back to Phoenix.
“We were young and excited at 16, and looking back, maybe we should have thought about it more,” Hope Leyba said. “But also looking back, making that decision in the moment, and going with our heart and our gut, was a good choice.”
Getting a quick commitment from the Leybas was easier because of their family ties to CU, but it’s another example of how Sanchez has consistently won recruiting battles while building the Buffs into a perennial national contender.
Sanchez, who led Metro State to two Division II national titles in six years and then spent four years as the head coach at Wyoming where he was the 2011 Mountain West coach of the year, is making his ninth NCAA Tournament appearance in 14 seasons in Boulder. His roster is built with players mostly from Colorado and the western U.S.
That’s included luring local players back to CU, even after losing out on them out of high school. That trend of reclaiming Colorado talent in the transfer portal includes the defender Swierenga (Lutheran, LSU); midfielder Reagan Kotschau (Broomfield, Washington State); midfielder Jordan Whiteaker (Dakota Ridge, TCU); defender Greer Maguire (Arapahoe, Arkansas); midfielder Lexi Meyer (Highlands Ranch, Alabama); and forward Riley MacDonald (Mountain Vista, LSU).
The Buffs’ other main headliner this season is goalie Jordad Nytes. The Grandview alum, a three-year starter and team captain, set a program record with her 26th career shutout in the same game that Hope broke the single-season scoring mark.
Sanchez declared Nytes “the best goalkeeper in the country,” and Nytes is ready to live up to that label while she, the Leybas and the Buffs look to make another statement for CU soccer. The furthest the program has ever advanced in the NCAA Tournament was the third round (Sweet 16) in 2006 and ’13. Playing the first two rounds at Prentup Field, where CU is unbeaten this season at 10-0-2, could catapult the Buffs.
“This run the last three years has really put CU on the map as one of the top programs in the country,” Nytes said. “This year, we can go far. If we get ourselves to the third- or fourth-round or beyond, it will cement us within that top (echelon) of Division I.”
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