The Western Nebraska Community College women's soccer team knew Saturday's contest was going to be a battle and the Cougars battled with Otero College for much of the match. In the end, the Cougars fell 7-3 in a high-scoring contest.
Lesley Vasquez, who had a goal and two assists in the contest, said the team played hard against a team that is second in the conference with a 7-1-1 conference mark and 9-1-1 overall.
"We had a couple struggles to mark with them," Vasquez said. "They just marked the long balls in the first half. The second half we tightened up a little and we also got some goals."
The final score is not indication of how hard the Cougar women played as they competed tooth-and-nail against a Rattler team that had plenty of speed in the striker position.
"I think the sophomores just have to take it in as a high mentality and just really know that it doesn't indicate of how we played in the 7-3 loss," Vasquez said. "It was just us playing with power with less girls than they do. It was just us going in with a different mentality."
Otero got on the scoreboard first on back-to-back goals from Bello Omowunmi. The first game with 29:17 left in the opening half and the second came five minutes later.
WNCC sliced the Otero lead in half as Vasquez took a freekick with 3:57 left in the half and sent the long ball to the net the ball trickled past the goal line for the goal. Omowunmi came right back down and scored her third goal of the game with 2:47 left to go into halftime up 3-1.
Laura Garcia put Otero up 4-1 with a goal a couple minutes into the second half. That goal, however, still kept the Cougars mentality in check as Vasquez took another free kick and Maria Villagomez found the ball in the box and put it squarely into the net.
The two squads exchanged goals after that. With 32 minutes to play, Omowunmi scored her fourth goal for a 5-2 Otero lead. WNCC cut the deficit back to two when Tania Razo scored off an assist from Vasquez.
Otero closed out the game with two more goals as Celia Catalan scored in the 69 minute and then Laura Garcia scored in the 75th minute.
The total shots were pretty equal as Otero won the shot battle 26-23.
WNCC goalkeeper Emily Villagomez had eight saves in net.
WNCC, 3-4-2 in conference and 4-5-3 overall, will wrap up the regular season on Saturday when they host Laramie County Community College at 1 p.m. LCCC is 6-3-3 overall and sitting third in the conference.
The Western Nebraska Community College women's soccer team knew Saturday's contest was going to be a battle and the Cougars battled with Otero College for much of the match. In the end, the Cougars fell 7-3 in a high-scoring contest.
Lesley Vasquez, who had a goal and two assists in the contest, said the team played hard against a team that is second in the conference with a 7-1-1 conference mark and 9-1-1 overall.
"We had a couple struggles to mark with them," Vasquez said. "They just marked the long balls in the first half. The second half we tightened up a little and we also got some goals."
The final score is not indication of how hard the Cougar women played as they competed tooth-and-nail against a Rattler team that had plenty of speed in the striker position.
"I think the sophomores just have to take it in as a high mentality and just really know that it doesn't indicate of how we played in the 7-3 loss," Vasquez said. "It was just us playing with power with less girls than they do. It was just us going in with a different mentality."
Otero got on the scoreboard first on back-to-back goals from Bello Omowunmi. The first game with 29:17 left in the opening half and the second came five minutes later.
WNCC sliced the Otero lead in half as Vasquez took a freekick with 3:57 left in the half and sent the long ball to the net the ball trickled past the goal line for the goal. Omowunmi came right back down and scored her third goal of the game with 2:47 left to go into halftime up 3-1.
Laura Garcia put Otero up 4-1 with a goal a couple minutes into the second half. That goal, however, still kept the Cougars mentality in check as Vasquez took another free kick and Maria Villagomez found the ball in the box and put it squarely into the net.
The two squads exchanged goals after that. With 32 minutes to play, Omowunmi scored her fourth goal for a 5-2 Otero lead. WNCC cut the deficit back to two when Tania Razo scored off an assist from Vasquez.
Otero closed out the game with two more goals as Celia Catalan scored in the 69 minute and then Laura Garcia scored in the 75th minute.
The total shots were pretty equal as Otero won the shot battle 26-23.
WNCC goalkeeper Emily Villagomez had eight saves in net.
WNCC, 3-4-2 in conference and 4-5-3 overall, will wrap up the regular season on Saturday when they host Laramie County Community College at 1 p.m. LCCC is 6-3-3 overall and sitting third in the conference.