Your future, our focus
OT Goal lets Western Wyoming to Escape with Win
BY RANDAL HOROBIK
Tribune Sports Editor
You didn’t need to ask the question. The long looks on the faces of the Northwest College women’s soccer team said it all following a 3-2 overtime loss on Tuesday afternoon to Western Wyoming.
“We’re disappointed,” said Trapper head coach Rob Hill. “We let our guard down for 10 minutes or so in the second half and got a little complacent and they made us pay. This is the sort of game we can learn from to become a stronger team.”
Everything looked to be going Northwest’s way on an unseasonably warm Tuesday afternoon. After playing Western Wyoming, a team that defeated the Trappers 4-1 on the road earlier this season, to a scoreless draw in the first half, Northwest fired home a pair of goals in the early minutes of the second half.
Belgrade, Mont., freshman Sydney Heckel tallied her team-leading third goal of the year just a couple minutes into the frame. Heckel ran onto a long pass against Western Wyoming’s back row, beat her defender one-on-one and laced a shot past the keeper’s fingertips to put the Trappers in front.
Minutes later, Casper’s Hannah Couldridge made a run down the center of the defense to receive a pass from Heckel. After making a move to avoid the onrushing Western Wyoming keeper, Couldridge tapped the ball home into an empty net to give the Trappers a 2-0 lead.
Just when it looked like the Trapper women might be on their way to the team’s firstever home victory, they began to spiral out of control.
Western Wyoming recovered one of the goals within a few minutes as a crossing pass off a free kick resulted in a shot that beat Trapper keeper Becca Sangster diving to her left. Moments later, Western lobbed a ball into the box from 35 yards out that found its way over Sangster’s outstretched fingers and beneath the cross bar for the equalizing goal.
The Trappers took another hit following the back-to-back goals. Sangster — the only goalkeeper listed on the Trappers’ roster — was knocked out after taking a forearm to the head while attempting to clear a ball at the top of the box. Sangster was down on the field for several minutes and was later transported to the hospital for precautionary purposes with what Hill suspected was a concussion.
“She took a nasty hit,” Hill said of the blow Sangster absorbed.
With Sangster shelved for the remainder of the game, Powell’s Rachel Cruz-Nicklas found herself unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight. Listed as a defender on the team’s roster and with one workout session as a goalkeeper on her Trapper resumé, Cruz-Nicklas donned the gloves to defend the NWC goal.
It was very much a baptism by fire for Cruz-Nicklas, who was forced to make a pair of point-blank saves on shots from inside the box. The Trappers’ reserve keeper was also forced to race forward to take the ball off the foot of an oncoming Western Wyoming forward to force overtime.
After the Trappers missed on multiple opportunities to score in the first half of the overtime, fatigue and inexperience caught up to the team. Western Wyoming beat the Trappers down the left-center of the field. Cruz-Nicklas attemped to charge out from the mouth of the goal to clear the ball, but got there a half-step late. Western was able to side step the Trappers’ goalie, maintain possession of the ball and score the game-winner into the open net.
It was the third game in five days for Northwest College. Over the weekend, the Trappers split games, falling 4-0 at North Idaho in a contest where NWC surrendered four firsthalf goals and winning 1-0 over the University of Idaho women’s club team.
Powell’s Shelby Willis scored the only goal against the University of Idaho, snapping a five-game Trapper skid in the process. Willis found herself at the right place at the right time with under 10 minutes remaining when teammate Sydney Heckel’s free kick ricocheted off the crossbar and fell to her feet for a relatively easy put-back goal.
The Northwest College women are now 2-6-1 in their debut season. The team returns to action at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 6 for a Region IX contest against Western Nebraska.