Kennedy Lawes scored two goals and the Western Nebraska Community College women's soccer team blanked Western Wyoming Community College 5-0 Wednesday afternoon at the Landers Soccer Complex.
The win was important for the Cougars after they dropped two matches over the weekend. Those two losses to Sheridan and Northwest woke the team up.
"I think those losses did wake us up," Edna Washington, a freshman from England said. "Those games last weekend were games we were not supposed to lose. We knew we had to step our game up and come back even harder to get back where we were of winning games."
Wednesday, the Cougars definitely did that while playing well, outshooting Western Wyoming 16-6. WNCC controlled play from start to finish.
"I thought we played really well actually considering over the weekend we lost both games," Washington said. "We had to come back harder and I think we moved the ball well better than we did last weekend. We just worked as a team and that is how we got the five goals."
Washington got the scoring started with a goal with 31:27 left off an assist from Isabel Hunter. The Cougars went up 2-0 as Lawes netted her first goal of the match, putting in a penalty kick with 14:10 left to play in the opening half for a 2-0 halftime lead.
WNCC wasted little time in scoring in the second half. Lawes scored her second goal just 15 seconds into the second half, taking the opening kick from Hunter and driving unassisted to the net and planting the ball firmly in the net.
Neither team scored again until late. With 9:36 left in the contest, Aiyanna Grubac picked up an assist by finding Rhiannon Castle, who scored to make the score 4-0.
The Cougars finished off the scoring with 1:40 left as Hunter picked up her third assist of the game by finding Janie McAmis for her second goal of the season and the 5-0 lead.
Washington said plenty of players got into the action in the win.
"I think we just knew we had to get this game and we had to come back from our losses," she said. "We just came out and scored."
WNCC recorded six corner kicks to Western Wyoming's two. Sierra Benavidez had six saves in net.
WNCC, 3-2 overall, will return to action when they host Laramie County Community College at 4 p.m. LCCC earned honorable mention votes in this week's national poll and come to Landers Complex with a 6-3-2 record.
"We need to do the same thing that we did today but work harder than we did today as they are a stronger team," Washington said. "As long as we work as a team, we should have everything under control."
