CHEYENNE, Wyo. – The Laramie County Community College women's soccer team scored three goals in the first 25 minutes of the Region IX quarterfinal game with Western Nebraska Community College and then the two teams played equal ball the rest of the way as the Cougars ended their season with a 6-3 loss to the Golden Eagles in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on Saturday.

                WNCC finishes their season with a 7-7 record and were much improved over a year ago when the Cougars didn't qualify for the regional tournament.

                WNCC head coach Todd Rasnic said the team competed hard to the end and just came up short.

                "I think we played OK; we just didn't have it and we just couldn't get over the hump to win it," Rasnic said. "They fought all the way to the end of the game which is what I talked to them at halftime about. I was pleased with that."

                The Cougars fell behind the 8-ball early as the Golden Eagles' Macey Woolcock scored an unassisted goal 12 minutes into the game. Six minutes later, Woolcock delivered the ball to Paige Hill for the second goal of the game.

                LCCC went up 3-0 in the 25^th minute when Jacqueline Stokes scored off an assist from Caroline Kuhn.

                After that, the Cougars picked up the pace and kept playing strong. WNCC scored in the 39^th minute to make it 3-1 when Lesley Vasquez dished the ball to Tania Razo as she went one-on-one with the goalkeeper and planted it into the back of the net. That is where the teams stood at halftime.

                The second half saw the two teams play equal as each team had six shots in the half. LCCC went up 4-1 when Woolcock scored her second goal off an assist from Tayler Miller in the 58^th minutes. LCCC added another goal in the 72^nd minute as Stokes scored her second off an assist from Maggie Olsen.

                After that, WNCC made a run as Vasquez scored in the 79^th minute off an assist from Vanessa Vasquez to make it 5-2.

                Five minutes later, LCCC added another goal to make it 6-2 as Olsen scored off an assist from Abby Williams. WNCC wasn't through as Vasquez got her second goal off an assist from Razo to make it 6-3 in the 88^th minute. WNCC kept playing hard in the final two minutes as they had a couple shot attempts go wide to come even closer.

                LCCC finished with 16 shots compared to 10. The cornerkicks were close, too, with both teams recording one in the first half and LCCC winning the total at 7-5.

                WNCC played a clean contest with just one yellow card and had just one foul compared to seven for the Golden Eagles.

                WNCC losses nine players off this year's team including some players that have been at WNCC for three seasons. Rasnic said it will be tough to replace the sophomores, but they also have a good nucleus of returning players. The sophomores on the team included Hailey Kwiatowski, Izzy and Cali Wright, Hazel Cardenas, Andrea Jimenez, Vanessa Vasquez, Yoseline Hernandez, Yasmin Rojas, and Vicky Granda.

                "We had a lot of young players and we will come back strong next year," he said. "

We had some great kids and they will be difficult to replace. We have a lot of talent coming back."