LA JUNTA, Colo. – The Otero College and Western Nebraska Community College men's soccer teams are both fighting for a home playoff berth and Friday's contest was key in deciding the top four teams to host a first-round playoff spot.

                Otero won the conference battle on Friday as the Rattlers captured the 6-1 win on La Junta High School's artificial football field. Otero moves to 5-1-1 in conference play while WNCC falls to 4-3 in conference play and drops to fifth in the conference standings.

                WNCC will wrap up the regular season against Trinidad State College Saturday afternoon. Trinidad State is 2-3-2 in conference play and 2-8-2 overall.

                Friday's contest saw the Rattlers score the first two goals within the first 15 minutes. The first was scored by Bienevu Djunga and the second goal came from Souley Diof. WNCC sliced the lead in half as Rodrigo Cercal scored with 25 minutes to play in the opening half off an assist from Rennan Sousa that was a set piece and Cercal found the ball in the box and didn't take long to plant it in the back of the net.

                WNCC kept playing strong but with 13 minutes left until halftime, Raphael Da Silva scored to make it 3-1. The Rattlers added another goal three minutes before intermission off of Diof's second goal of the game.

                The second half saw Kai Sakata score just two minutes into the as the sophomore planted the penalty kick into the net. Otero added another goal as Diof scored the hat trick to make the final 6-1.

                Otero outshot WNCC 12-5 with WNCC just getting one shot on goal while Otero had 10 on goal.

                The Rattlers also had seven corner kicks to the Cougars one. Otero was also the more physical of the bunch with 21 fouls to just six for WNCC.