ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. -- Oct. 19, 2011 -- The Western Nebraska Community College men's soccer team put together a complete match and kept its season alive with a dominating 3-1 win over Western Wyoming Community College in the first-round of the Region IX playoffs in Rock Springs, Wyo., on Wednesday.
The win pushes the 8-8-1 Cougars into the semifinals against No. 1 seed Otero Junior College at 2 p.m. on Friday.
In other action in the tournament, Northwest College topped Northeastern Junior College 4-1 to advance to play No. 2 seed Laramie County Community College. The winners of the two semifinals advance to Saturday's title match at noon in Rock Springs, Wyo.
WNCC coach Todd Rasnic said his team played a complete match.
"We played a complete game, but we struggled a little bit early," he said. "In the first 10 minutes they pressed us pretty hard. We withstood that. Western Wyoming tried to sprint at us the whole game. They played 30 minutes of each half sprinting, trying to win everything. Then they broke down and that is when we got our goals. Every time they made a mistake we scored on them."
Rasnic said he can't take anything away from how hard Western Wyoming played, but credits his team of playing harder then the Mustangs.
"We played pretty good. Western Wyoming played lights out," he said. "They played really, really hard. They were working really hard to win the ball, but they couldn't do anything with it when they got the ball."
WNCC took control of the match in the first half as Baboucarr Sarr opened the scoring in the 23rd minute after taking a pass from Erwin Sanchez and putting the ball in the net. Sarr made it 2-0 after he stole the ball from a WWCC defender and found the back of the net in the 36th minute.
Western Wyoming came out in the second half and sliced the lead to 2-1 after the Mustangs' Cody Nice scored. WNCC quickly came back for a 2-goal lead after Jacob Santos scored off an assist from Sanchez in the 23rd minute.
After that, the Cougar defense stepped, including second-half goal keeper Jesus Alvarado. Alvarado made seven saves and Rasnic said that he made an unbelievable save after going one-on-one with a Mustang forward.
Joey Rasnic started in net for the Cougars and made four saves and picked up the win.
Coach Rasnic, who was celebrating his birthday on Wednesday, said at this point, a win is a win.
"I really don't think about it that way; it was just nice to get a win," he said. "Whether it is my birthday or someone else's birthday it doesn't make a difference, a win is win. A win in the playoffs is a win in the playoffs. We are definitely on track to do well if we can just finish against Otero. We haven't beat them since they started a team, so there is always a first time; we are just hoping that first time is Friday."
Friday's contest won't come easy as the Rattlers have outscored the Cougars 8-2 this season, including defeating the Cougars 3-0 earlier this month. WNCC is 0-4 all-time against the Rattlers. Rasnic said this win should give them momentum into Friday's contest.
"Every win at this point is huge. You can't downplay a win when you are in the playoffs because one loss and you go home," Rasnic said. "The momentum shift for us is huge because we have a huge challenge on Friday. We play Otero and they have only lost a couple games all year. We really haven't played a good game against Otero, whether that is them disrupting our play or whether we just haven't played well. We will find out. I think we are equal skill wise, it is just the desire that we put on the field."
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