The Western Nebraska Community College men’s soccer team forgot to bring their offensive game to the soccer complex, falling to Laramie County Community College 3-0 in a Region IX contest at the Landers Soccer Complex Wednesday afternoon.
The Cougar men managed just four shots in the contest while the Golden Eagles had 25 shots in the contest. A major reason for the disadvantage, however, was because two of the Cougar’s top scorers – Jose Netto and Jacob Santos – were sitting out because of card violations in previous games.
“We had a couple boys sitting out because of red card violations, so that kind of hurt us since our normal rotation of players broke down,” WNCC coach Todd Rasnic said. “We were really at a disadvantage, but we are starting to move in a direction where we are getting a lot of that fixed now with the mentality of the players. Hopefully you will see a different team when the men walk out on to the field.”
Defensively, the Cougar men showed up as they only trailed 1-0 at intermission after LCCC’s Alfonso Perea scored off an assist from Landon Horst in the 37th minute. After that, the Cougar defense shut the Golden Eagles down.
The second half was a little better offensively for the Cougars. LCCC went up 2-0 with 40 minutes to play on an own goal after the ball slipped past the Cougar goalkeeper. WNCC came back and had a couple of excellent attempts on goal. The first came in the 27th minute as a shot just went high. The best chance of a goal, however, came a minute later after Baboucarr Sarr went one-on-one with the Golden Eagle goalkeeper Colby Keller, who stayed with Sarr and made a nice save on a sure goal.
LCCC added an insurance goal in the 23rd minutes after Peterson Nen planted a free kick into goal for the final margin. The Golden Eagles outshot the Cougars 25-4. LCCC also had eight corner kicks to WNCC’s one.
Jesus Alvarado started in net for the Cougars, giving up one goal and collecting six saves. Joey Rasnic was in net in the second half, giving up two goals and two getting four saves.
WNCC, 5-6-1, will be back in action Tuesday when they host Cloud County Community College at 3 p.m. at the Landers Soccer Complex. Cloud County comes in with a 7-1-2 record, having registered shut outs in their last three games.
Rasnic said this will be a big contest. Last year, Cloud County won 1-0 in Concordia, Kan., scoring a goal in the 62nd minute.
“Cloud County is playing teams that are ranked in the top five in the nation and playing a lot of teams in their own region that are ranked opponents. We have a big challenge ahead of us to get ourselves back on solid footing on the men’s side,” he said. “I think the men can do it; they just have to make the decision that they have to play and increase the intensity level of their game, and play with a bit more heart out there. In today’s game, that was lacking. They know it and I know it, so we are going to work in training to get them moving at the speed the game is demanding. If we can do that, we can beat any team in Region IX. However, if they continue to just play at half speed or three-quarters speed, we are going to have a struggle the rest of the year.”
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