The old saying of "a tie is like kissing your sister" came true and that is exactly what happened Saturday at Landers Soccer Complex when the Western Nebraska Community College and Laramie County Community College men's soccer team hooked up for a Region IX contest.
WNCC was in firm control of the game until a late goal off a penalty kick gave the Golden Eagles a goal to tie the game and that is where it stood after 90 minutes of play at 2-2.
With the tie, WNCC falls to fourth in the conference standings with 11 points while Laramie County is third with 13 points. The conference is led by Otero with 18 points and Casper with 15 points. WNCC is 3-2-2 in conference and 3-3-5 overall. Teams get three points for a conference win and one point for a tie.
WNCC will wrap up the regular season this week with three home matches. WNCC will host No. 9 Barton Community College on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. and then host Central Wyoming College Friday at 1:30 p.m. and the Northwest College at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
If the Cougars win both conference games this weekend, they can get to 17 points.
Saturday's action saw the Cougars play well in the first half. WNCC took a quick 1-0 lead when Pau Vera Montoya took a shot 18 yards out for the goal just eight minutes into the contest.
LCCC came back and the Golden Eagles' Darrien Gates went one-on-one with the goalkeeper and scored in the 17th minute to tie the game.
WNCC went up 2-1 when Mederique Eboucle fed Oscar Molina with a pass and Molina scored from 30 yards out. After that, both teams' defense stepped up and neither team scored the rest of the half.
The second half was a defensive battle as neither team was getting a lot of shots and both defenses were playing strong. WNCC was within four minutes of claiming the win when a penalty kick was called. LCCC's Evan Perez lined up to take the PK and WNCC goalkeeper Owen Henderson made the save but the ball went sideways and Perez took the rebound and put the ball into the net for the tie.
That is where the game ended as neither team got a good shot off for a chance to win the game after that.
WNCC had 11 shots in the game while LCCC had 16.
Owen Henderson had eight saves in net for the Cougars.