Cougar soccer finishes season with a win
The Lassen College Cougars men’s soccer team season has come to an end. The penultimate game was Friday, Nov. 8 against Feather River College where the Cougars started strong but fell 4-3.
In their final game of the season against College of the Redwoods, the Cougars broke their season long losing streak with a 3-1 win at the Tuesday, Nov. 12 game.
The Cougars kicked things off strong against Feather River placing a 4-5-1 formation on the field allowing them to stay on top of the counter attack. This helped result in a long pass from midfield where Khalil Amodu ran the ball for 50 yards to put it past the FRC goalie to take the lead.
At the 30 minute mark Shaun Coyle found Arthur Pancoto running down the left wing to put a hard shot passed the goalkeeper for a 2-0 lead.
Then much like the first goal Joshua Duncan made a long pass to Pancoto, who waited for the goalkeeper to dive prematurely, before sinking the Cougars’ final goal.
In the second half the Cougars’ strategy fell apart fast, allowing the FRC offense to break free and in a span of 10 minutes score four goals.
Things turned around for the final game of the season, however. In the first half the Cougars kept the pressure on the Redwoods’ goalkeeper, and the Cougars finally got the chance they needed when they were given a free kick at the 50 yard line.
Duncan took the kick and was able to drop it past three defenders. That’s where Jose Delgado was able to take it down to put it away for the Cougars’ first goal and leave the first half 1-0 over the Redwoods.
Going into the second half the Courgars talked and reminded themselves to not make the same earlier mistakes where they fell so quickly, and the strategy seemed to work.
At the 15 minute mark Coyle snuck it past two Redwoods defenders to pass it off to Pancoto who made an almost 50 yard run where the Redwood goalie came to meet him in the box, but Pancoto kicked it just over his head for a 2-0 lead for the Cougars.
Redwoods were able to respond off a dead-ball corner kick where it slipped around the Cougars’ defenders where they pounded into the Cougars’ goal bringing the game to 2-1.
Just five minutes later Harry McIlhone found Duncan in the box, but Duncan was taken down giving a penalty kick to Lassen.
Pancoto converted the kick, slipping it into the Redwoods’ goal finishing the game 3-1 for the Cougars.
