Trapper men send scoreboard soaring in wins

The Northwest College men’s soccer team pushed scoreboard operators to the extreme last week while earning a trio of victories. The Trapper men scored a 7-5 win against Region IX opponent Western Nebraska and followed it with weekend wins of 4-1 over North Idaho and 7-0 over Bismarck State College.

“Overall, I think we did a better job of attacking,” head coach Rob Hill said of the wins, which pushed the Trappers’ record for the season to 4-1-1 overall. “We still need some work on finishing. We need to calm down and realize when we’re five yards out that it’s not necessary to try and beat the ball through the back of the net and just place it better.”

Finishing wasn’t much of a problem for either side in the Western Nebraska contest. After grabbing a 2-0 lead early, the Trappers gave up back-to-back scores to Western Nebraska. The teams alternated goals then to a 4-4 halftime score.

Western Nebraska jumped to a 5-4 lead early in the second half, but the Trappers closed out matters with three consecutive goals. The wacky Wednesday win upped Northwest’s Region IX mark to 1-1-1 this season.

“That was just crazy,” Hill said of the game. “Especially in the first half, every time you looked, someone was putting the ball in net.”

For the Trappers, Leonardo Mederios shouldered much of the work of putting the ball in the net. Mederios earned himself a hat trick, ultimately finishing with four of Northwest’s seven goals. Cesar Canales, Dean Johnson and Matheus Santos added one goal apiece.

Johnson, Adrian Elicerio, Alan DaCosta and Legofi Crawford all earned credit for assists.

On Friday, Northwest dedicated Trapper Field with a victory. Canales tagged the only goal of the first half, despite the Trappers peppering the North Idaho defense with shots. The visiting team went more than 30 minutes before placing their first shot on goal against the Trappers.

In the second half, North Idaho tied things momentarily, scoring off a corner kick in the 49th minute. That would last for 10 minutes until Santos took a feed from Crawford in the box, faked a shot to lure the North Idaho keeper off balance, then gave the ball one more touch to score into an unprotected net for the go-ahead goal.

Crawford added an unasisted goal in the 69th minute. Helio Junior followed with a finish of a Flavio Salmeron assist four minutes later to wrap up the first official victory on the newly dedicated field.

On Sunday, the Trappers once again sent the scoreboard soaring to seven against visiting Bismarck State. Mederios and Adrian Elicerio each scored twice in the victory. Other goals were added by Da Costa, Santos and Crawford.

Johnson and Mederios each picked up two assists. Crawford, Junior and Shane Scrivner rounded out the assist column.

The game was largely played in the Trappers’ attacking zone as Northwest peppered the Mystics with a variety of shots and dangerous runs. Northwest held a 4-0 lead at the half.

The Trappers will spend much of the week resting and healing up from the flurry of three games over a five-day span. The team travels to Idaho on Friday for a rematch with North Idaho. The Trappers face the University of Idaho club team on Saturday.

Women’s soccer loses first game

In a battle of unbeaten soccer teams, the Northwest College Trappers picked a bad time to get off to a slow start. The Trapper women surrendered a pair of early goals and were never able to climb back in a 2-0 home loss to North Idaho on Friday.

“Sometimes there are lessons in losing,” said women’s interim coach Kaylin Olivas. “We started off slow. The girls know it and I think that was an eye-opener for them. You don’t like to lose, but sometimes what you learn from it helps you become a stronger team.”

North Idaho took advantage of a Trapper error in the eighth minute, pouncing on a ball the Trappers failed to clear to tally their first goal on the re-shot attempt. In the 27th minute, Trapper goalkeeper Morgon Cox fingertipped a shot attempt away from the net with a diving save, but North Idaho outhustled Northwest’s defense to the ball and tapped it home before Cox could recover for the second goal.

That goal proved to be a momentum shifter as Northwest began playing with more energy. The Trappers missed a number of chances to carve into the North Idaho lead before intermission, perhaps the best being a hard shot by Sydney Heckel after the sophomore had stepped in front of an outlet feed by North Idaho and worked for a one-on-one against the goal keeper. Cassie Zimmerman shaved the near post with a shot attempt just before the half as well.

The Trappers continued to pressure North Idaho to begin the second half. Samiha Simao forced a pair of quality saves to keep Northwest off the scoreboard. The Trappers also played a ball into the box in the 55th minute that rolled loose on the ground for an extended period without the Trappers able to get a solid shot off.

“We had some chances, but we weren’t able to finish them,” Olivas said. “The biggest problem though was coming out slow and putting ourselves in a position where we had to climb back from 2-0.”

In a position to have to recover from their first defeat of the season, Northwest bounced back in a big way on Sunday. The Trappers set a school record with eight goals in an 8-0 rout of Bismarck State.

Mariam Gelderloos scored in the ninth minute with a low ball through traffic in the box. Christine Silverstone followed three minutes later with a run that got her behind the back side of the Mystics’ defense. Gemma Alexander played the ball into space beautifully, allowing Silverstone to hit the ball in stride for a far-post score that beat Bismarck’s keeper.

From there, things went downhill in a hurry for Bismarck. The Mystics watched two players go down with injuries over the next 15 minutes. Without a reserve player in uniform, that left the team playing with just nine players on the field for the final 17 minutes of the first half.

The result was a non-stop barrage of shot attempts from the Trappers. Simao pushed Northwest to a 3-0 lead in the 33rd minute off a Katie Kipp feed. Kaitlyn Smith added a score in the 36th minute, putting the ball into net off the keeper’s hands after receiving a Marena Quint feed.

Both injured Bismarck State players returned to the pitch for the start of the second half, but it did little to slow down the Trappers’ onslaught. Quint tallied a goal just three minutes into the second half off a Heckel assist.

Heckel scored again in the 59th minute as Quint returned the favor with her second assist of the game. Four minutes later, it was Powell native Kipp on the receiving end of a beautifully played ball into the box from Haley Ahrenholtz for a score.

The Trappers wrapped up scoring in the 77th minute as Ahrenholtz placed one into the top of the net from 30 yards out. Heckel assisted on the shot.

The Trapper women moved to 5-1 on the season with the weekend split of games. The team travels to North Idaho for a rematch on Friday. The team squares off against the University of Idaho club team on Saturday.

“The girls are already talking about playing North Idaho again,” said Olivas. “They know they didn’t play their best the first time and I think they’re anxious for that second opportunity.”