NW Kansas in town to play Cougars Saturday

Scottsbluff's Megan Patrick can't wait to play her first collegiate soccer match in front of her home fans when the Western Nebraska Community College women's and men's soccer teams host Northwest Kansas Technical College on Saturday at the Lander's Soccer Complex.

"It is exciting partially because we don't have to travel which helps us with our legs," she said. "It is also real exciting because my whole family will come to watch along with my previous coaches and friends will come support us. It will be exciting."

The women's home opener kicks off at 1 p.m. followed by the men's game at 3 p.m.

Patrick is just a handful of local soccer players that make up the WNCC men's and women's soccer teams. Besides Patrick on the women's side, you also have Gering's Dani Copsey and Chanice Blanco, as well as Torrington's Caitlyn Cummings. The men's team has Gering's Joey Rasnic, Mason Nab, Cody Thompson, and Scottsbluff's Bernardo Urrea, Tyler Patrick, and Justin Becerra.

Megan Patrick said it will be nice to get off the road and play a contest at home. The focus is becoming more in tune as a team.

"The focus is just staying as a unit," she said. "Also having a good organization through the middle and keeping the connections between the defense, midfields and forwards."

The Cougar women enter the contest at 1-1 while the men are 0-2. Patrick said they played OK this past weekend where they defeated Pratt Community College on an Ari Herrera penalty kick with a minute to go before falling to Barton Community College 4-0.

"I think we did really well the first day and the second day we were real exhausted," Patrick said. "We kind of had some breakdowns but I think we grew as a team that weekend. [Playing Barton last weekend] was just so different because it was so humid and it was on turf and it was a million degrees. It was exhausting."

Sunday's men's contest against Barton saw temperatures reach around 102 degrees and the players said it was 117 degrees on the turf field. It was so hot on the field that many of the men's players' rubber soles were melting.

Patrick said the women's win against Pratt was exciting; especially of how they won the contest on a penalty kick.

"It was real exciting because it was our first season game and we were just feeling good about each other," she said. "We just came together real nicely."

Patrick said this past weekend definitely went better than the preseason.

"We are doing a lot better than our preseason of just staying connected, but we still have a lot of work to do," she said.

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