Mugshots are of WNCC freshman Kristi Blicharz, for the Cougar women, and sophomore Marcel Sales, for the Cougar men.Western Nebraska Community College soccer coach Todd Rasnic and volleyball coach Giovana Melo saw plenty of good things during their scrimmages this weekend.
The men’s and women’s soccer team faced Midland Lutheran College on Sunday. The Cougar women tied the four-year school 1-1, while the men fell to Midland 3-2. Midland picked up several players from now-defunct Dana College.
The volleyball team found better luck at a round-robin scrimmage at Black Hills State. The Cougar women, who are ranked fifth in the nation, won 11 of 12 games against Black Hills Stat, South Dakota School of Mines, Central Wyoming and Eastern Wyoming. The only game they lost was to Central Wyoming.
Both coache
s were using this weekend’s games as a barometer of where the teams sit for when the season opens up for real on Aug. 27.
“I thought both teams performed where I thought they would be this time in the pre-season,” Rasnic said. “We go to every scrimmage of seeing what is working and what isn’t working, and to find out what we need to work on in training. We got really good information from that. We performed well.”
Melo said they did just OK with plenty of room to improve.
“I think after practicing for two weeks together, we did a pretty good job,” the third-year head coach said. “We fought really hard and got better. These games showed us the areas that we need to work on and it shows us the room for improvement we have. Obviously we played well, but we are not even close to where we have to be to compete at a top level.”
Melo said the team is learning to play together as a team during the 12 games at the Black Hills scrimmage.
“We had some really good plays and we had our downs as well,” she said. “I think we have to learn to be a little bit more consistent, but we do have a lot of talent which is definitely a plus. We showed that we can play as a team and we have the team to do that, but we just have to get better every day.”
In the soccer scrimmages on Sunday, both teams had some awesome goals. In the women’s game, the Cougar’s only goal came when freshman Kristi Blicharz went one-on-one with a Midland defender and was fouled in the box. Jordan Lutkin then hit the penalty kick for the score.
WNCC’s two goals in the men’s contest came from a sophomore and a freshman. Sophomore Marcel Sales had the first goal as he put a 25-yard free kick over the Midland defensive wall into the upper 90. The second goal came off a corner kick as Brian Ramirez knocked the ball in off a header from Seedy Ali-Sarr.
Rasnic said on the women’s side, the freshmen competed well.
“They were certainly educated on the physical aspect of the game,” he said. “Playing the four-year schools in scrimmages will give then an idea of what the play in the NJCAA will be like. The women’s player showed well, but we still have a bit of work to do. Defensively we looked fairly strong and we looked strong in the other areas of the field as well. But, we still have some tweaking to do in our midfield and offense.”
Rasnic said both squads have plenty of talented players this year.
“We have several individually-talented players on both squads, but more than that, we have players that have the mentality to work together as a team,” he said. “To me that is what makes championship teams. We are hoping they continue to improve and peak at the right time this year and we can find ourselves deep into the post season. “
Melo is excited about her talent for the coming year as well.
“I think this team is very promising,” she said. “It is just up to us to prove it and work hard.”
No comments:
Post a Comment