The Central Community College men's soccer team will take part in the 2019 Region IX tournament.
The Raiders are the #8 seed and will meet top-seed Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyo., on Saturday at 12 p.m. local time (1 p.m. central time).
The Raiders have a 9-8-1 regular season mark and 3-6-1 record in region play. The Golden Eagles are 12-3 overall and 10-0 in region play. CCC and LCCC met on Sept. 28 at the Raider Soccer Complex with the Golden Eagles winning, 7-1.
"Competing at the NJCAA Division 1 level and making the playoffs is always the goal," said CCC head coach Hawken Hanna. "I am extremely happy that our team was able to attain that goal with so many young players on the team."
Jeremiah Vidale, one of only a few CCC players to start every game, is the leading scorer for the Raiders with 10 goals on the season. Anthony Bolanos and Luis Tovar each scored four goals. CCC goalies Chris Adame and Joao Victor combined for 93 saves and a goals-against-average of 2.25.
"We had a few difficult games during the regular season and the team always did a great job using those experiences to learn and responded well every time," said Hanna.
The Golden Eagles' leading scorer is Manny Tapia, who scored 15 goals on the season, while Cameron Broadhurst and Noe Oritz-Pena each totaled 10 goals. LCCC net minders Declan Domyan, Mario Munoz and Tanner Riedel gave up a combined 24 goals on the season and sport a 1.60 goals-against-average.
"Laramie has been on fire offensively over the past few weeks and earned the right to be the #1 seed," said Hanna. "They have a lot of ability in the attack and will definitely have some confidence going into the playoffs."
However, Hanna feels that even though the Raiders have a tough task taking on the top seed in the tournament; don't count his team out just yet.
"Our team has shown a lot of grit to make it to this point and the matchup with LCCC is another opportunity for us to not only prove that we have grown, but also another chance to learn more about ourselves," said Hanna.