Western Nebraska Community College men's soccer coach Eseah Ingram loved what he saw for the first competition of the season during the Navy/Gold scrimmage on Saturday.

                The scrimmage itself saw two evenly-matched teams as the Gold took a 3-0 lead before the Navy scored the final three games of the match to tie things at 3-3.

                "Scrimmage was solid, saw a lot of good things but also saw some things I believe we need to improve on," Ingram said. "We're connecting early right now and today, in moments, it showed. We must continue to keep working and strive to get better every single day."

                Saturday's scrimmage was a good first-match of the season as the team will have a big scrimmage match against Garden City Community College on Wednesday on the road in Kansas.

                Then, the Cougars will open the season Thursday, August 21 when they face Salt Lake Community College in Ephraim, Utah, followed by Snow College on August 23. Salt Lake was a national tournament qualifying team last fall.

                "The work we need before Wednesday is more so of our fitness and just structural things regarding our build-up play and defensive principles," Ingram said. "But we are looking solid right now and Wednesday's game will be a good test for us at Garden City is a solid side from a solid conference."

                The depth the Cougars showed Saturday was evident on both the offensive and defensive side.

                "Our depth is impressive, the level is all the same or higher with any rotation or substitution," Ingram said. "I saw that we are a team that can play my style of futbol but can also adapt into other play styles if necessary. Today (Saturday) I also saw our level of competitiveness and never give up attitude and energy. Like I said, we are clicking well right now and I'm excited to see how much we improve in due time."

                The scrimmage was just 1-0 had halftime as the Gold got a goal on a penalty kick from Robert Connolly with 11:36 to play in the opening half.

                Connolly came back and immediately scored his second goal less than a minute into the second half to make it 2-0 and the Gold went up 3-0 on another goal by Alvaro Abeal.

                The Navy came back and had back-to-back goals from Aurele Cuenot and Anthony Lemus with 26 and 24 minutes to play. The Navy tied the game with 18 minutes to play on goal by Bonheur Kitongo.

                Both teams had opportunities to score in the final 10 minutes, but the three goal-keepers did a good job of keeping the ball out of the net.