WNCC end soccer season with 3-1 loss to Otero at regionals

The Western Nebraska Community College men’s soccer team entered the Region IX playoffs as the underdog, and despite playing tough, the Cougar men came up short to Otero Junior College, falling 3-1 in the opening game of the playoffs Friday morning at the Landers Soccer Complex.

The Cougar men allowed two first-half goals and couldn’t capitalize on a number of scoring opportunities in the match. The Rattlers advance to play Northwest College, a 2-1 overtime winner over Laramie County Community College. Saturday’s title contest between the two first-year programs will kick off at noon at the Landers Soccer Complex.

“The way we played is non-reflective of the score even though 3-1 is a difficult loss,” WNCC coach Todd Rasnic said. “We did the right things today except we didn’t execute in front of the goal and when you don’t execute and finish, you end up with the results that we had.

“That [not finishing] has been the story of our season, but with a group of 18 and 19 freshmen, the boys have improved a lot over the season and they will come out next year and be stronger. We know what we need to fix and where we need to recruit for next season.”

Both teams had 10 shots in the contest, except it was the Rattlers that found the back of the net a few times more than the Cougars. Rasnic still is proud of his guys for playing a full 90 minutes.

“Overall, they played with the attitude that I was looking for of never giving up and playing the full 90 minutes. We certainly did that today and I was proud of the guys,” he said. “If we could have finished a few more of our scoring chances, we could have made this more of a game. Hats off to Otero; they have done a great job of bringing in a first-year program and putting some quality players on the field. We are not going to take anything away from them, they worked hard to get where they are at.”

Otero’s Karamba Janneh scored the first two goals of the game. His first came off an assist from Nolan Gilvar at the 28:46 mark of the opening half. Janneh scored his second goal eight minutes later off a pass crom Adrian Carrillo.

The Cougars had three great scoring chances to score in the first half after falling behind 2-0 as one shot hits the goal and bounces away. WNCC also had another shot that had eyes for the net, except Otero goalkeeper Sean Bogardus made a sterling save.

Otero came out of the second half and quickly made it 3-0 scoring just 1 minute, 40 seconds into the half. Janneh delivered a pass to Emmanuel Kollie for the goal.

WNCC came right back and scored their first goal of the contest as Marcel Sales took a pass from Jose Netto and squarely planted the ball in the back of the net with 41 minutes remaining. WNCC continued playing well offensively, but couldn’t get another shot into the net.

While each team had 10 shots on goal, the Cougars finished with four corner kicks to the Rattlers one.

Rasnic said his team lacked composure in front of the net today.

“We might have been a bit of unlucky, but also it was a bit of inexperience in the ability to finish on the final ball,” he said. “We lacked a little bit of composure when we had opportunities in front of the keeper and ended up playing the ball directly to the keeper. We have to do better with those opportunities because those opportunities don’t come around much in a game. If you don’t capitalize and you can’t be consistent at finishing in front of goal, you will have issues. It is one of those things where we have to work on in the recruiting process for next year.”

WNCC finishes the season at 5-12 on the season.

In the other semifinal contest, both Northwest and LCCC battled to a scoreless halftime. The Golden Eagles scored first in the second half as Cord Stimpson netted the first goal. Northwest kept battling before knotting the score at 1-1 with six minutes remaining as Legoloi Crawford scored off a Adrian Elicerio assist to force overtime.

The Trappers needed just 20 seconds of overtime to move into the title contest as Leonard Mederios took a pass from Jonathon Chavez and went one-on-one with the goalkeeper and angled the ball into the net for the winner.