The Western Nebraska Community College men's soccer team captured its ninth win of the season with two hard-fought wins in Wyoming over the weekend.
WNCC opened the weekend by getting two goals each from Saul Aguilar and Hector Salgado in rolling to a 5-2 win.
The Cougars followed that up with a heart-pounding 1-0 win over Northwest College on Sunday. Northwest was coming off a 2-1 overtime loss to Northeastern Junior College on Saturday.
The Cougars move to 9-5 on the season and 6-3 in conference play with one conference to play when they host Northeastern Junior College on Saturday at 4 p.m. in sophomore recognition day.
In Saturday's win, WNCC was in control of the contest from the get-go.
Aguilar got things started for the Cougars with two goals in the first 10 minutes of the contest. His first goal came just five minutes in as the sophomore from Aurora, Colorado, took a pass from Washington Junior and scored. Aguilar made it 2-0 with his second goal off an assist from Vinicius Viana. That was all the scoring in the first half.
WNCC went up 4-0 in the second half on two goals from Salgado. Salgado's first goal came in the 55th minute as Bernardo Torres recorded the assist. Salgado's second goal came five minutes later as Junior recorded his second assist of the contest.
Central Wyoming avoided the shutout with a goal in the 75th minute when Dallin Steiner scored. Junior answered with a goal in the 78th minute off an assist from Aguilar to make it 5-1.
Central Wyoming had a late goal by Gerson Lozano to make it 5-2.
WNCC outshot Central 24-8 in the contest. WNCC also had 12 corner kicks to just three for the Rustlers.
Ruam Barbosa had seven saves in net for the Cougars.
WNCC's match with Northwest was a little different type of a game with plenty of defense in the contest.
The Cougars needed just one goal in the contest as Matheus Lima scored in the 39th minute off an assist from Viana for the 1-0 halftime lead.
That was all WNCC needed as the Cougar defense shutout the Northwest offense to get the win. WNCC
Northwest outshot the Cougars 13-11. The Trappers had six corner kicks in the contest to just three for WNCC.
Barbosa recorded the win in net, recording six saves.
WNCC will take its 3-game win streak into Saturday's last game of the regular season in an important conference match-up. The Cougars, with a win over NJC and a Trinidad State loss, could move into the fourth spot in the conference standings.
Saturday's contest will also be the last for 13 sophomores. Playing their last regular season home game at Landers will be Arcy Salgado, Jorge Rojas, Scott Dike, Bryan Mejia, Daniel Matty, Hector Salgado, Bernardo Torres, Saul Aguilar, Gabriel Saturino, Vinicius Viana, Omar Sissoko, Jack Mann, and Ruam Barbosa.