POWELL, WY – An early goal from Giselle Heck and a clean sheet from Rebecca Sargent helped the Laramie County Community College women's soccer team clinch a spot in the NJCAA National Championships for the third straight season after defeating Northwest College 1-0 on Saturday afternoon in the Region IX Championship match.
Head Coach Lugo Arenas praised his defense and their effort on the way to the win and the second trip to the national tournament in two years at the helm of the program.
"We knew what they had going forward and the players they had that were really dangerous. For us to be able to limit their productivity moving forward, I was just ecstatic for how they all came up huge the entire game for me," he said.
The fourth seeded Golden Eagles found themselves in front in the 24th minute of the match when the NWC goalie had trouble securing a ball that was dumped into the box.
Heck was able to control the ball at her feet long enough to send an off balance shot inside of the right post with no goalie in net to put the Golden Eagles in front thanks to an assist from Jentrie Porter.
"(Giselle) just did a really good job staying composed and capitalized on that mistake off their keeper," Arenas said.
From there the rest of the first half went by with neither team really threatening the other's defense much.
That wasn't the case in the second half when the Trappers really put forward an assault on the LCCC goal. Part of that was strategy, with the Golden Eagles looking to possess the ball more than attack, but the Trappers still managed nine shots to only two from LCCC in the half.
Sargent was up to the task in goal with nine saves in the match total and picking up her second clean sheet in postseason play to go with a shutout against Gillette College to open the postseason.
"For that to be the first time Northwest has gone the entire 90 minutes without scoring, it shows that defense wins championships and all of that hard work you plug in starts to pay off," Arenas said.
Heck's goal is her sixth of the season and is third on the team in tally's.
The win moves the Golden Eagles to 11-4-3 overall and they become the first NJCAA Division I team to punch a ticket to the national championship tournament in Wichita, Kansas. Pool play for the tournament begins on November 17th through the 19th, with semifinal games beginning on November 21st.
"I can imagine our seeding isn't what most people were expecting. We kind of flew under the radar towards the second half of the season. That's when we played our best soccer so it's just showing our girls that we belong here, and they did everything they needed to get to this point," Arenas said. "These last two years we showed up and it's been great, but you don't want the story or the highlight to be that you made it to nationals. You want to compete when you get there."
This is the 15th appearance in the national champoinship for the LCCC women's soccer program and the third straight for the Golden Eagles. It is also the 15th Region IX Championship for the women's soccer program. For more information on the national tournament and more on the LCCC women's soccer team, please visit www.golccc.com.