The Snow College men's soccer team picked up two crucial victories over Pacific Northwest Christian College, 10-1, and North Idaho College, 5-2 last weekend in Ephraim. The Badgers now sit in second place in the Scenic West Athletic Conference standings.
The Badgers are coming off a split weekend with a win over Colorado Northwestern Community College, 5-2, while they dropped their game against Salt Lake Community College, 3-2.
The Badgers got off to an explosive start against PNWCC as they scored seven goals in the first half. The first of which came in the sixth minute off the foot of
Bailey Smith, who scored his first goal of the year with the assist from
Isaac Stanley.
The second goal came in the 12th minute when
Jack Burman put a shot on the net that was blocked, but it was recovered by
JJ Cubillas and fed back to Burman, who was able to put it in the net the second time around. The third goal came three minutes later in the 15th off a breakaway when
Max Mayer was able to find his first of the year off an assist from Burman.
The fourth goal was scored in the 21st minute by Stanley and was assisted by Cubillas, who turned around and scored the fifth goal in the 25th minute for his third of the year, with the assist from Smith.
Burman was able to find his second goal of the game in the 28th minute as he was able to bury the ball past the keeper off an assist from Omer Sangiv.
Jorge Beltran found the final goal of the half for the Badgers in the 30th minute as he found the net off an assist from both Cubillas and
Max Sloan, to bring the Badgers to a 7-0 lead at the end of the first half.
The Badgers started the second half hot as Burman found his third goal of the game just 57 seconds into the half off an assist from
Amir Odeh. PNWCC scored its lone goal in the 49th minute, as it snuck a ball past
Mathias Christensen.
The Badgers would go on to score two more times to close out the game in the 61st minute by Jeff De Cuteau with assists from Smith and
Gabe Newman. The final goal came in the 69th minute when
Liam Kilbane was able to power a ball past the keeper to bring the final score to 10-1.
The Badgers finished the game with 30 shots, 15 of which were on net. Christensen finished the game with two saves.
After defeating PNWCC, the Badgers turned their attention to NIC. The Badgers lost to NIC earlier this year, 1-0.
Cubillas opened the scoring early for the Badgers against NIC as he knocked one in the 11th minute on an assist from Stanley. The roles flipped for the duo as the Badgers scored their second goal of the game in the 18th minute with Stanley finding the net on a Cubillas assist.
Stanley found the net again in the 27th minute for his sixth goal of the season. The Badgers would put three more shots up and would close the half up 3-0.
NIC started the second half with a goal of its own in the 49th minute to cut into the Badger lead. The Badgers wouldn't sit idly by and responded in the 55th minute to extend the lead back to three as Cubillas was able to feed the ball to Aiden Moore, who was able to connect for his first goal of the year.
Both sides started to trade shot attempts until the Badgers were able to add one more goal for insurance as
Francisco Madeira was able to bury the ball past the keeper with the help of
Tom Culverhouse in the 83rd minute. The Cardinals would score again in the 90th minute, but it was too little too late as the Badgers would win 5-2.
The Badgers finished with 17 shots, seven of which were on net. Christensen recorded one save against NIC, bringing his season total to 42 after the weekend. He is now one save away from tying the school record for saves in a career, set at 98 by Jason Myers in the 2018-2019 seasons.
The Badgers will wrap up the regular season at home against the College of Southern Idaho Thursday at 3:30 p.m. before playing their final game against Truckee Meadows Community College Saturday at 1:30 p.m. Both matches will be played at the Snow College Soccer Complex in Ephraim. For video streaming and live stat information, visit snowbadgers.com.
