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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.
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October 51, 2018