NWC soccer hoping for first national berth

The No. 18 Northwest College Trapper men’s soccer team will fly to Tucson, Ariz., today (Thursday) to make its first appearance in district tournament play. The Trappers face host Pima in the West District opener on Friday.

It was not the game head coach Rob Hill spent last week preparing to play.

“It absolutely shocked everybody,” Hill said of Pima’s victory in the Region I tournament. “It supposedly was a foregone conclusion that Yavapai would win since they were hosting the tournament at home and hadn’t been beaten all year.”

Instead, Pima dropped a 2-0 bombshell on the nation’s fourth-ranked team to earn both the regional title and the right to host this weekend’s district event. One day earlier, Pima upset another nationally-ranked team, Arizona Western, to reach the championship game.

“It just goes to show that anything can happen at any spot on the day,” Hill said.

He should know. His Trapper team walked a similar road on its way to the Region IX title two weeks ago. Entering as an unranked 3 seed, the Trappers delivered back-to-back 2-1 victories against nationally ranked opponents to punch their ticket to district play.

“We don’t have a huge amount of information on them,” Hill said of his scouting of Pima, which debuted in the rankings this week as the No. 17 team, one spot ahead of the Trappers. “Obviously, they’re a solid team to have come out of probably the toughest region in the NJCAA. They’re all quality teams down that way. They’ll be a tough team to handle, for sure.”

For their part, the Trappers have spent the last two weeks staying in game shape and at game speed. The layoff has also given Northwest an opportunity to focus on the next step of its season goals.

“We’ve talked about our level of desire in the game and trying to concentrate on finishing, focus on who we’re defending and shifting our focus as a unit and as a team,” Hill said. “It’ll be different. We’ve spent the last couple days working in the wind, which we might not have down there. The grass will roll differently. It will be a quicker field than what we have here, but I think that plays into the strength of our passing game.”

The winner of Friday’s Northwest-Pima contest will have one more hurdle to clear. North Idaho, which received a first-round bye despite having, by far, the worst record of the three West District teams, awaits the winner in Saturday’s championship game.

The West District champion earns a spot in the NJCAA national tournament, to be held Nov. 17-20 at Phoenix.

“The guys are looking forward to it. They’re excited about it,” said Hill. “We feel like we’re as ready as we can be.”