Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 31, 2018)
6 S P O R T S _____________ Worst season in soccer program history ends BY JACOB THOMSPON SPORTS EDITOR @SPORTSEDTHOMPS A depleted bench and a quiet head coach watched as the final seconds of the worst season in Clackamas Com m unity College soccer history ended Wednesday, O ct. 24, w ith a 1-0 loss to C lark College at Pioneer Memorial Stadium in Oregon City. The Cougars finished with an overall record of 1-10-4 under first year head coach Miriam Coto. The Cougars focused on defense more than offense and it showed statistically as Clackamas finished the season only allowing 28 goals, but the offense struggled to put points on the scoreboard finishing with four goals in the entire season, with two of the four goals coming in the Sept. 14 w in versus C hem eketa C om m unity College. Clackam as averaged 9.6 shot^ on goal per. game, but averaged less than a goal per game with a goals for average of 0.27. “ [Creatively] we definitely kind of struggled especially in the offensive end/’ sophomore midfielder Lauren Rock said. Clackamas started the season 0 -2 -2 and according to sophomore m idfielder Eileen Reyna, it took the Cougars a little time to gel as a team . “ We didn’t know how to play with each other, we Kim Jordan evades Clark College at Pioneer Memorial Stadium, Oct. 24. couldn’t click ,” Reyna said. “ The chem istry w asn’t there at first, and it ended up coming at the very end.” A nother struggle Clackam as faced was injuries. According to Rock, som etimes the Cougars were so riddled with injuries they couldn’t field 11 players on the field. “ We never really gave u p ,” Rock said. “ We were down players for a lot of the Season playing with one or two subs or even with less than 11 people on the field, but we played really hard every single game and never gave u p .” Out of the 10 losses, Clackamas held opponents to one’goal in six of the losses and in the final game of the season, the Cougars showed that even if the wins were still eluding them , they had improved. Holding Clark to one goal in the final game was a far cry from the eight goals they conceded in the first meeting of the two squads. “ It was kind o f a building year for u s,” sophomore defender Kelsey Houston said. “ We had a lot of people go and we had new coaching, so I think next year will be better.” Looking forward to next season Clackamas is hopeful that the com m unication and team chem istry they worked so hard on this year will carry over to the next season. Wrestlers ready to return to the mat STORY AND PHOTO BY JACOB THOMPSON SPORTS EDITOR @SPORTSEDTHOMPS After finishing the 2017-18 season as the No. 2 NJCAA wrestling team in the nation, the Clackamas Community College mat men are back in action and as always, expectations are high. “ I’m feeling good, I’m coming in confident, I’m looking to win a national championship,” 141-pound sophomore Elijah Ozuna said. “ I don’t expect anything less.” After a summer of intense training, the Cougars are hungry to prove their selves as cream of the crop. “ I trained and trained like an anim al,” Ozuna said. “ I wrestled a lot,, 1 ran a lot and I lifted a lot. I just kept working.” October 26 was the first chance to see the Cougars in action as they competed in the annual Scarlet and Navy inner-squad exhibition. “ I always have mixed reaction at inter-squad because we see each other so m uch,” Head Coach Josh Rhoden said. “ You don’t know how much of it is ‘we need to do better’ and how much of it is ‘we know each other so w ell.’ ” One of the matches that surprised Rhoden was the 133-pound bout that pinned true freshmanJason Shaner against Nate Johnson. Johnson was an honorable mention for All-Am erican accolades in 2016-17, but Shaner was able to best him 13-4 in their exhibition match. < “ In the third round, I took him down and got four points for a near fall/’ Shaner said. “ It was a good hard match.” Shaner has big goals o f his own w anting to gain A ll-A m e rica n accolades and hoping for a national championship for him and the program. C lackam as is a little banged up for the opener according to Josh Rhoden, but he is confident that the next man up will be ready for the opportunity. “ W e’ve been hu rt a lot recently. A lot o f our scholarship guys are out right now ,” Rhoden said. “ W e’ re going to have a lot of guys who came here looking for an opportunity and their going to get one next week.” Rhoden is excited to see how good his group is,..but adm its th at w inn in g a championship at all costs isn’t worth it. “ Obviously we want to be able to say we can compete for a national championship. Do we want to win one? Yes, but at all cost no, because we’ve fallen into that trap before,” Rhoden said. “ If we can say we’re competing for a national championship at the end of the year it makes it way more fun at th e end of the year. Some years you just get beat and that’s Clackamas Print ----------------- ------------------------------------ theclackamasprint.com sports and we have to acknowledge We’re playing a game. Hopefully they’ll buy into the Kool-Aid we’re selling. ” The Cougars open up the season 713 miles away from campus as they look to take down Western WyomingCommunity College on Friday before traveling to Laramie, to compete in the Cowboy Open at Wyoming University on Sunday. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ October 51, 2018
