The Western Nebraska Community College women’s soccer team played hard, but battling injuries, the Utah State-Eastern women scored two second-half goals to capture the 3-0 win Thursday morning at Landers Soccer Complex to open the season.
WNCC coach Todd Rasnic said they have some work to do, but they will get better. WNCC hosts Northwest College Friday morning at 10 a.m. at the soccer complex.
“The women’s game just shows that we have work to do. We have a lot of injuries and we are down numbers,” Rasnic said. “They will grow. Right now they are struggling because of numbers and we are a little unorganized. We need to get more organized as a team and I think we will go a long way.”
The big thing, this is the first game of the season and Rasnic does see some good things from the women’s team.
“It is the first game and they didn’t get opportunities for scrimmages this year and I think that kind of hurt us a little bit,” he said. “That is the same with the men’s team.”
Early going, WNCC had a couple of chances to score but couldn’t connect. With 31 minutes left in the opening half, Millie Selfe had a 2-on-2 break to the goal and the Utah State-Eastern defense snuffed it out.
The Cougar defense was also playing well as well all game. Utah State-Eastern had three a couple of prime scoring opportunities, but Cougar sophomore goalkeeper Emily Villagomez got the save.
The first chance game with about 30 minutes to play when the Eagles forward had a point-blank opportunity that was saved. Five minutes later, another shot was saved by Villagomez and the rebound shot went wide.
Five minutes later, Utah State-Eastern had a one-on-one attempt that Villagomez recorded the save.
Finally, with 11:48 to play, the Eagles Andie Andrus found Davian Dix for the goal and the 1-0 lead. That was the halftime score.
WNCC had another shot to score in the second half early but it was snuffed out. The Eagles came back and scored two goals in a minute span as Sariah Taeoalii scored twice with the first coming on an unassisted goal with 20 minutes to play and then Emmalee Christensen found Taeoalii a minute later for another goal.
WNCC had a prime scoring opportunity to score with a minute to play when Ashley Villagomez nailed a shot that just went high.
Emily Villagomez had 10 saves in net for the Cougars.
