The Western Nebraska Community College women’s soccer team tuned up nicely for the next week’s Region IX playoffs with a 2-1 win over Western Wyoming Community College Friday afternoon at the Landers Soccer Complex in Scottsbluff.The Cougar men saw Western Wyoming fight back from two deficits to escape with a 4-3 overtime win. The Cougar men will be back in action today when they face North Idaho College in Cheyenne, Wyo.
Shauna Michaelis, sophomore from West Jordan, Utah, said this win was important considering the Mustangs defeated the Cougars last month 1-0.
“This win is very important, so that we can get another rook as to how their tem plays and what we can do to beat them when we play our first regional tournament [next Friday in Cheyenne},” she said. “We didn’t play our best, but we did as much as we needed to win the game. We had
too many personal mistakes but we learned from them and kept playing until the last minute to secure the win.”
The Cougar women held a 2-0 lead at halftime. Michaelis scored the first goal off an corner kick as she found the lose ball in the box and put it in the back of the net with 15 minutes left in the half.
WNCC wasted little time in netting it’s second goal as Ana Jacobo sent a pass to Gering’s Keah Brost in the middle who pounded it into the goal.
The second half was dominated by defense for the Cougars as they held the Mustangs scoreless until their was seven minutes left in the contest as Wendy Davis scored off an assist by Taryn Roosa. The Cougars defense stiffened in the rest of the game to get the win.
Michaelis said the defense has been playing well as of late, including holding the national rated Laramie County Community College women to a scoreless tie in their last time on the field 10 days ago.
“For the most part we have done some amazing things as a defense,” she said. “We still have some mistakes that need fixing, but we have kept strong through most of our matches and plan on keeping everything out of our net at regionals.”
The Mustangs out shot the Cougars 8-7, but WNCC’s goal keeper Jessica Taylor made seven saves in net. The big difference in the match was the Cougars were called for 12 offside penalties to none for Western Wyoming.
While the women’s contest was basically a defensive showcase, the men’s contest was offensive as both teams kept pressure on each other’s goalkeepers.
Western Wyoming wasted little time in scoring, just three minutes into the contest on a Kyle Selijaas shot. WNCC quickly tied the game on a Jose Macias goal, but it was ruled no good because of an offside call.
The Cougars did tie the game before half as Gering’s Chris Guadarama nailed a shot into the net off assists from Kareem Hernandez and Marcel Sales with 16 minutes left in the half.
Hernandez gave the Cougars a 2-1 lead in the second half scoring just minutes into the half. WNCC enjoyed the lead for a spell until Western Wyoming’s Mika Goodman scored with 20 minutes left to play.
The Cougars regained the lead with 10 minutes to play as Matt Hoffman scored from the left side off of passes from Macias and Hernandez giving WNCC a 3-2 lead.
WNCC couldn’t hold the lead as Western Wyoming tied the game at 3-3 off a penalty kick by Selijaas with 1:11 to play to force overtime.
The overtime period saw both teams play tough defense. Salijaas, however, recorded the hat trick by scoring his second goal with 2:12 left in the first overtime to give the Mustangs the win.
Tony Rocha, a sophomore from Juarez, Mexico, said his team can use this loss as motivation next week when the Cougars face Western Wyoming in the first round of regionals on Friday.
“This game woks as motivation even though we lost because we know we could have beat Western Wyoming easily today; it was just unlucky for us,” he said. “We just didn’t finish our opportunities to score. We will come out stronger at regionals.”We
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