WNCC men fall 6-4 in offensive shootout to Northwest Wyoming

The Western Nebraska Community College and Northwest College men's soccer team hooked up for an offensive slugfest at the Landers Soccer Complex Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately for the Cougars, the Trappers came out on the positive end of the Region IX contest, claiming a 6-4 win.

"We knew this team had a pretty good scoring threat. I talked to the guys before the game that we might have to outscore them," WNCC coach Todd Rasnic said. "Unfortunately 6-4 is not outscoring them. We missed a few key opportunities to finish the ball in front of the goal and that hurt us."

The offensive outburst started early and both teams scored plenty of times throughout the 90-minute match. Northwest controlled the contest for the majority of the first half, wasting little time in getting on the scoreboard. With just 55 seconds gone in the match, Gavin LaFollette found Alan De Costa for the quick strike.

WNCC quickly knotted the contest in the 37th minute as Marcel took the rebound of a missed and planted the ball in the net to tie the match at 1-1. WNCC had another chance to go ahead, but missed a prime scoring opportunity.

The miss, as it turns out, was costly for momentum as the Trappers went on a three-goal scoring spree over a nine minute period to grab a 4-1 lead. Northwest retook the lead in the 27th minute as Jonathon Chavez scored from a pass from Marco Tulio-Andrade. A minute later, LaFollette from a pass Chavez before Zach O'Deill scored with an assist from LaFollette.

Rasnic said that his team didn't play to their potential in the first half.

"I thought we came out flat, whether that was their play to take us out of our game or we were just flat today," he said. "I am not sure which it was. It could be freshmen getting into a real physical match and this was by far the most physical team that we played."

The Cougars fought back in the second half, slicing the deficit to 4-3. It didn't take WNCC long to get things going as Corban Sipfle delivered a pass to Kurt Wilson for the first goal just four minutes into the half. WNCC's spirited play continued as Jose Netto received a pass from Manolo Garcia-Oronoz and chipped the ball over the Trapper's goalkeeper for another goal.

Both teams kept playing spirited with several attempts. Finally, the Trappers broke the ice as Chavez scored with 17 minutes left to push the lead to 5-3. Three minutes later, Northwest's Da Costa found the net again after the ball bounced around in front of the net for a few seconds.

WNCC's final goal came from Miguel Leon with 38.8 seconds to play as he out-dueled goalkeeper Tealand Stender for the goal.

Northwest outshot the Cougars 17-11 in the contest. The Trappers also had four corner kicks to the Cougars' one.

Rasnic said that there are plenty of positives that the players can take from this match.

I think we have a little bit more work to do. We are giving up the middle way too much and I think that is killing us in every contest," he said. "We know what it is and that is the good thing because if we can fix what is going wrong, we should be OK for the rest of the season and stay competitive. Obviously, we have a much higher scoring threat then what we had in past years. You could see that by the four goals that were put in today. those are positive things we can take away from the game."

WNCC, 1-2, will next be in action Wednesday when they travel to Cheyenne, Wyo., to face Laramie County Community College in another Region IX encounter.