CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Rodrigo Cercal scored two goals for the Western Nebraska Community College men's soccer team, but it wasn't enough as Laramie County Community College scored three second-half goals in registering the 4-2 win in the Region IX tournament quarterfinals at Cheyenne, Wyoming, Saturday afternoon.
WNCC head coach Todd Rasnic said they played as hard as they could in the contest but came up short.
"We needed to play with some consistency (coming in) and we had moments where we played really well but you have to play 90 minutes to win," Rasnic said. "We had moments where we looked really good, which is something to build on next year. We just couldn't pull it today."
The whole game was a battle between the two teams that were separated by just a 90-minute drive and the first half showed how strong both teams were.
The first half saw both squads score in the first 10 minutes of the contest and then neither team scored the final 35 minutes to settle for a 1-1 halftime tie.
LCCC opened the scoring with an unassisted goal by Edgar Garcia just three minutes into the contest.
WNCC quickly answered seven minutes later as Cercal took a pass from Alex Alarcon and sent the ball into the net to knot things at 1-1.
The second half saw LCCC retake the lead just four minutes into the half when Jorge Garcia-Munoz scored off an assist from Garcia for the 2-1 lead.
The Golden Eagles went up 3-1 when Garcia scored his second goal of the game in the 59th minute off an assist from Daniel Barajas. Five minutes later, the Golden Eagles went up 4-1 when Barajas scored off an assist from Christian Nunez.
LCCC kept the lead until the 81st minute when WNCC got on the scoreboard once again when Cercal scored his second goal of the game off a penalty kick. That, though, was as far as WNCC could get as they fell to the Golden Eagles.
The shots were practically equal in the first half as LCCC had nine shots compared to seven for WNCC. For the game, the Golden Eagles finished with 18 shots to 10 for the Cougars.
Corner kicks were just as close as LCCC won that battle 10-6.
Both goalkeepers finished with six saves. WNCC's Hernan Burdiles finished with all six saves.
The difference in the game was fouls where WNCC had 14 compared to nine to LCCC. WNCC had five yellow cards while LCCC had one yellow and one red and played with one less player the final nine minutes of the game.
Cercal finished his WNCC career with 27 goals after scoring 15 last year and 12 this season. The two goals on Saturday moved Cercal to the number one spot for most career goals by a Cougar with 27. The previous best was 26 by Lawan Abary in 2016-17.
WNCC finished the season at 4-7-1 and will lose 12 to 13 sophomores off of this year's team next year.
"I think it was an OK season," Rasnic said. "It was difficult to get consistency going but we weren't a horrible team and did well most of the year. I wasn't disappointed."