STERLING, Colo. – The Western Nebraska Community College men's and women's soccer teams opened the season at Sterling, Colorado, with one-goal defeats to different opponents.
The WNCC men and Northeastern Junior College men were scoreless through 73 minutes of play before the Cougars allowed the only goal of the contest to fall 1-0 to the Plainsmen.
The Cougar women trailed Hutchinson Community College 2-0 before coming back to tie the contest. In the end, the Blue Dragons' Hadlie Lowe scored the hat trick with seven minutes left to give Hutchinson the 3-2 win.
WNCC coach Todd Rasnic said both teams dominated, but they just couldn't finish shots to get the wins.
"We just need to start finishing," Rasnic said. "We are getting chances on goal on both sides. We are getting plenty of chances, we just have to finish the ball. We dominated the game both men and women."
Rasnic said the difference in the women's match was defense and they need to make adjustments when they head back to Sterling, Colorado, on Sunday to face Northeastern Junior College.
"We dominated in every aspect of the game," Rasnic said. "Our defense needed to adjust and we gave up two goals. It (the defense) was a mess, but it is OK because it was a learning experience and it wasn't a conference game."
The Cougar women fell behind 1-0 in the 35th minutes of the first as Lowe scored her first goal. That is where things stood at halftime.
Hutchinson made it 2-0 with 37:17 left to play in the match as Lowe scored her second goal.
WNCC came back to cut Hutchinson lead in half as Tania Razo took a pass from Lesley Vasquez with 27:01 to play.
Razo tied the game in the 63rd minute as the freshman from Denver took a pass from Andrea Jimenez to make it 2-2.
WNCC kept battling hard and with seven minutes to go, Lowe took a pass from her teammate Julia De Souza to score the hat trick. It was Lowe's fifth career hat trick for the 3-2 lead.
The men's game was similar to the women's game as WNCC had 12 shots including four on goal by Rodrigo Cercal, Matheus Nascimento, and Adolfo Rojas.
NJC had 13 shots and eight on goal.
WNCC goalkeeper Hernan Burdiles had six saves in net.
The men's match was a good defensive contest for much of the match. The match was scoreless through the first half and much of the second half. NJC took the lead in the 73rd minutes off a corner kick as Lucas Martins scored on a header for the go-ahead goal.
A few minutes later, WNCC had a chance to tie the game as Adolfo Rojas missed out on a chance.
The difference in the game was corner kicks for the Cougar men. NJC finished with nine corners compared to just one for WNCC.
The other factor was the number of yellow cards as there were over 13 yellows issued and one NJC player received two yellows which resulted in a red card. NJC had 7 yellows and WNCC had six.