Western Nebraska Community College’s Rodrigo Cercal has never scored four goals in a match in his playing career. That came to an end Saturday afternoon as the sophomore from Joinville, Brazil, scored four goals to help the Cougar men to a 5-2 conference win over Northwest College.
“It (scoring four goals) was different. It was my personal record where I have never scored four times in a single game, so I just want to enjoy it and talk to my parents and family,” Cercal said. “Today we celebrate and tomorrow we get focused for our next game which will be another battle.”
Cercal’s four goals ties a school record for most goals in a match. Cercal joined Jose Netto from 2011 and Lawan Abary from 2017 with four goals in a match.
While Cercal had four goals, he said it was important for them to get back on the winning track after falling 1-0 to Casper College on Friday in a very competitive match.
“We stayed composed with our effort and our attitude because yesterday (Friday) we had a tough loss, but today was a different game, a different attitude from the beginning of the game,” Cercal said. “So, it was a good team effort and that was the key for today.”
The big thing in the win, besides Cercal’s four goals, was the Cougar players picked up the offense as eight different players took shots on goal. Cercal said this team does have plenty of offense.
“Today we were able to move the ball quickly and apply the concepts that we have been practicing,” he said. “We did the job and we had five goals, so it was a pretty good job from the strikers.”
WNCC started the match as Cercal’s first shot went astray. WNCC then had back-to-back corner kicks that didn’t result in a goal. Cercal later had a shot that went wide. Finally, with 29:26 to play in the first half, Cercal took a pass from Tom Pelzer and scored as he beat the Northwest goalkeeper and had a wide-open shot.
Ten minutes later, Cercal scored again when he took a pass from Paul Cerros to make it 2-0. WNCC went up 3-0 with 17:47 when Rennan Sousa delivered a free kick and Cercal directed the header into the net.
Northwest made it 3-1 when Ricardo Farias da Silva scored on a penalty kick with 13:33 to play. A minute later, WNCC made it 4-1 as Matheus Nascimento took a pass from Gabriel Santos and scored as the ball hit the post and went in for the halftime score.
The defenses picked up in the second half as each team scored just once. WNCC didn’t score until 24:14 left to play to make it 5-1 as Cercal scored his fourth goal off an assist from Pelzer.
The Cougar defense came close to pitching a shutout in the final half, but with 47 seconds to play, the goalkeeper slipped and left Farias de Silva wide open to bury the ball into the net, but it was too little, too late for the Trappers.
WNCC had 15 shots in the contest while the Trappers had 10. WNCC also won the corner kick battle 6-3.
WNCC, 4-4 overall and 4-1 in conference play, will have next weekend off as their next match will be October 8 when they travel to Cheyenne, Wyoming to face Laramie County Community College
“That weekend off will be good because we have a bunch of players that are injured or not at 100%, so we are going to use that week to rest some players and get them at 100%,” Cercal said. “We will then go strong for the last three games. They will be battles against three good teams, so we need to be 100%.”
