The Western Nebraska Community College men's soccer team captured its third straight victory to move to 3-0 in conference with a hard-fought win over Lamar Community College on Saturday, topping the Lopes 2-0.

             The win moved the Cougars to 3-0 in conference action after topping Northeastern Junior College 3-1 and then beating Central Wyoming College the week before 3-1

             Saturday's win was one where Region IX Freshman of the Year Rodrigo Cercal scored twice and the defense played strong to get the win.

             Sophomore Rennan Sousa said the team played differently than in the win Friday against NJC.

             "First of all, we made a change in our behavior, putting much more energy than in the other games," he said. "Also, we were able to keep our focus the entire game, which helped us to score the second goal on Friday and maintained the advantage (on Saturday)."

             It didn't take WNCC long to get a chance to score as less than five minutes into the game, Cercal took a pass and maneuvered inside the box and was fouled to set up a penalty kick. Cercal, who is automatic from the PK circle, had a rare miss.

             WNCC kept peppering the goal as minutes later, the Cougars had three straight corner kicks but couldn't convert on any of the chances. Finally, the Cougars found the back of the net as Cercal took a pass from Matheus Nascimento with 24:35 to play in the half for the 1-0 lead.

             Neither team scored the rest of the half.

             The second half saw Cercal scoring his second of the contest as with 10 minutes of the half, Cercal took a pass from Rennan Sousa and scored to make it 2-0.

             After that, because of a strong defense by Lamar and a late rain shower during the last 15 minutes of the game, neither team scored again.

             WNCC clearly outshot the Lopes as the Cougars had 23 shots while Lamar had just two. Cercal had seven shots in the game while Sousa had four.

             WNCC won the corner kick battle 9-5.

             WNCC goalkeeper Hernan Burdiles had just one save in net.

             WNCC, 3-3 on the season, will be back in action this weekend when they play their final two regular season home contests before hitting the road the rest of the season. WNCC will play Casper College on Friday and then Northwest College on Saturday. Both men's contests will begin at 3:30 p.m. or following the women's contests.