The atmosphere was relaxed for the Western Nevada Community College women's soccer team, but don't mistake that for a lack of perspective.
WNCC easily beat an inferior team in Colorado Mountain 5-0 in its Scenic West Athletic Conference opener on Saturday at Edmonds Park. But the Wildcats continued to finish many of their chances, something that plagued in loss this past week at Paradise Valley and Cochise in Arizona. The Wildcats (3-2-2, 1-0) could have easily doubled their output against Colorado Mountain as they had just as many shots (5) hit the crossbar or post as they had goals.
While Wildcat coach Hillary Arthur continues to be pleased with her team's effort, she knows the missed chances could continue to hurt her team against stronger clubs.
"It's a nice effort," Arthur said. "It's nice when you win the games that you're supposed to.
"They (Colorado Mountain) put out a real great effort. But player for player we are the stronger team."
There was no question about that as WNCC had 29 shots on goal. When adding up the total shots, WNCC oushot Colorado Mountain a whopping 55-1.
But even though Christina Bradshaw, who's counted on to be one of the Wildcats' leading scorers, finally broke through for two second half goals, she hasn't been happy about the chances she's missed. Bradshaw said the team, "especially me have been in a funk."
"That's my duty on this team," said Bradshaw about scoring. "It was nice to add a couple to the scoreboard. We should have had a few more. When I'm not coming through somebody seems to come through."
But the game against Colorado Mountain was what WNCC needed after the tough week in Arizona. "It seemed nothing went right," Bradshaw said. "It was just bad from the beginning."
WNCC lost to Paradise Valley 5-0 and then despite dominating Cochise, lost 1-0 on a goal in the last two minutes. "We dominated that game," Bradshaw said.
Despite being disappointed, Bradshaw said about the Cochise game, "We were all proud of the way we played."
The Wildcats missed an early chance to score against Colorado Mountain when Courtney Hayes hit the crossbar on a shot from 25 yards. Jessica Maule was eventually able to score on a breakaway off of a pass from Dominique Glude, who had two assists.
Bradshaw's frustration continued when her shot hit below the crossbar and appeared to land past the goal line, but it wasn't ruled a goal. "I've had a few like that in the past week," she said.
At the end of the half, Meghan Olsen sent a shot in from 25 yards to give WNCC a 2-0 halftime lead.
Sabrina Cantrell began the second half when she just missed wide left on her header and Bradshaw followed with a shot off the left post. Bradshaw finally broke through when she sent a shot into the upper right corner of the net.
Phalon Mauntel followed with a shot that deflected off the goalie and Bradshaw was there to score on the rebound. Mauntel then missed with a shot off the crossbar and Virginia Loyola missed with a shot off the left post from the right side.
Allie Otto and Rachelle Goulet went virtually unchallenged at goal and after Goulet came in, Otto received the chance to play in the field. Otto got an assist when she sent a ball back to Maule, who scored from 20 yards to finish the scoring.
Otto received a chance to score when she drew a foul in the penalty box, but couldn't convert on the penalty kick and Arthur couldn't resist giving her a bad time. "Otto what more could you ask for?" Arthur said.
Others who took shots included Demi Vega, Hannah Lee, Melissa Goldfin, Glude and Courtney Lenhart.