NORFOLK – The Western Nebraska Community College men's soccer team captured their seventh win of the season with a 4-2 win over Northeast Community College on Sunday in Norfolk.
The win moves the Cougars record to 7-3 with crucial Region IX South contests this weekend when they travel to Trinidad State Junior College and Otero Junior College. Trinidad and WNCC are tied for the conference lead with 3-1 records. Trinidad is 7-5 on the season.
WNCC head coach Todd Rasnic was pleased with how his team played on Sunday,
"I thought we played pretty well on Sunday," Rasnic said. "We came out strong and played OK in the first half. We then took the game over and dominated play for the majority of the match. We got up 4-1 and I wanted to rest some of my guys and give others playing time. That was good experience for them."
The win was impressive in how the team came together against a Northeast team that is salty.
"Northeast is a pretty good team and they pressured us hard," Rasnic said. "We were able to make a good stand defensively. It was nice that my defense stepped up this weekend and really played well in both contests [Saturday against Central-Columbus and Sunday against Northeast]."
Northeast scored first with just 10 minutes in to the contest. WNCC quickly got things turned around and knotted the match four minutes later as Lawan Abary took a pass from Eseah Ingram for the tying score. The score remained 1-1 heading into halftime.
WNCC came out in the second half with a lot of fire, scoring three goals. Silvio Xavier scored the next two goals off assists from Abary. The first came 20 seconds into the second half and the second goal came with 30 minutes to play to make it 3-1.
The Cougars added an insurance goal with 21 minutes to play as Sergio Cruz scored off an assist from Andre Matzuda. Northeast added a late score to slice the lead in half.
WNCC finished with 14 shots on net compared to six for Northeast. The Cougars had three corner kicks to the Hawks' one. Viktar Kravets had three saves in net for the Cougars.
WNCC will face Trinidad State on Friday at 3 p.m. and then Otero on Saturday at 5 p.m. The Cougars will then return home to face Western Wyoming Community College on Oct. 7.