Lawan Abary scored two goals and the Western Nebraska Community College men's soccer team shutout out Central Community College-Columbus 3-0 in a Region IX South comferemce match Friday at the Landers Soccer Complex.
Friday's win gave the Cougars their 10th win of the season. More importantly, the conference win gave WNCC the No. 2 seed from the South for the Region IX playoffs next weekend.
Friday's win was huge in that the Cougars bounced back from a 3-2 conference loss to Northeastern Junior College.
"We just followed coaches' advice," Abary said. "We pushed hard from the beginning to the end. We didn't give up. We knew that a win would give us second and receive a playoff game at home."
WNCC controlled the match pretty much from the get-go. The first half was defensive for the most part. Abary scored the opening goal with 29:40 to play in the opening half as he pounded home a pass from Matheus Pinho for the early goal for the 1-0 halftime lead.
Neither team could find the goal for much of the second half, either. Andre Matzuda had a prime scoring shot that just sailed a little wide.
Matsuda's shot, though, was opened up the offense as Abary knotted his second goal of the night ripping a pass from Eseah Ingram for the 2-0 lead with 10 minutes to play. The Cougars added an insurance goal with 4:30 to play as Silvio Xavier scored for the 3-0 lead.
WNCC dominated play with 10 shots on goal compared to five for Central-Columbus.
The Cougars also had eight corner kicks to five for the Raiders.
Juan Garfio had three saves in net for the Cougars.
WNCC, 10-5, will wrap up the regular season on Saturday when the women and men will host Gillette College on Saturday in the team's final regular season match. The contest will also recognize the Cougar sophomores. The women's action begins at 1 p.m. with the men to follow.
Abary said they need to play like they did Friday.
"We just need to do the same and that is press hard and work hard," he said. "We just need to play the way we should play."
Central-Columbus will now travel to Northeastern Junior College on Saturday in another conference game and the Raiders need a win to force a 3-way tie for third place.