POWELL, Wyo. – The Western Nebraska Community College men's and women's soccer teams earned different outcomes in the Region IX conference openers against Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, on Saturday.

                The Cougar women received two goals from Lesley Vasquez and cruised the 5-1 win to move the Cougar women's record to 2-1 on the young season.

                The Cougar men led at halftime only to watch Northwest score two second half goals to earn the 2-1 conference win.

                The Cougar women dominated the Trapper women in the contest, out-shooting the Trappers 22-14.

                "The women played fine," WNCC coach Todd Rasnic said. "Northwest pressured us some but the girls came to play. The girls put our game plan into practice and it paid off. The other thing, the girls finished their shots."

                The first half saw WNCC pepper the net with four goals. Vasquez scored first to make it 1-0 and then Jackie Castro scored to make it 2-0. WNCC wasn't through as Andrea Jimenez scored with 17:07 left off an assist from Vicky Granda for the 2-0 lead.

                WNCC made it 4-0 with 10 seconds to play in the half when Tania Razo scored off an assist from Vanessa Vasquez.

                The second half saw each team score. Lesley Vasquez started the scoring when she netted her second of the game off an assist from Jimenez to make it 5-0.

                WNCC couldn't hold the shutout as Northwest scored with 2:30 to play to make the final 2-1.

                Summer Parnell had six saves in net for the Cougar women.

                While the women were executing the game plan, the men didn't even though the Cougars led at intermission.

                "Our guys didn't execute the game plan," Rasnic said. "That is basically how it went down. If you don't execute the game plan, you don't win games. That is how it works. Coaches can't run out on the field and play for you, you have to execute the game plan that is taught to you and we didn't do that. It was a bad loss. To their (Northwest) credit, they figured out what worked and kept right on doing it. And, we knew what worked, but we didn't keep doing it.'

                The Cougar men started off the game on a strong note as they led 1-0 at halftime as Luiz Escobar scored with 15:15 to play in the opening half off an assist by Rodrigo Cercal.

                The second half was totally different as WNCC couldn't find the back of the net while the Trappers scored twice off the foot of freshman John Joe Mullane, of Kent, England.

                Northwest outshot the Cougars 14-10 in the contest.

                Rasnic said the guys had chances to score, but just couldn't finish the ball.

                "The guys can play the game," he said. "We get tons and tons of opportunities in front of the goal and we don't score. We put ourselves in good positions to score several times, but we never finished."

WNCC had just two corner kicks in the match compared to seven for the Trappers.

The Cougars will have a day off and then they will face Casper College on Monday in Casper, Wyoming.