At the end of the 2005 season, we felt we had made enough of a growth to petition the school to approve the program's step up to a varsity program. At the board meeting of April 2006 the college board approved the move from a co-ed club team to a men's varsity soccer program. They also approved scholarship money to be awarded to the members of the new team. Along with the change in the status of the program the college itself made a change and renamed its athletic teams from Spartans to Mustangs.
Even with a late start to recruiting the recruits that we were able to sign on were good solid recruits. We had seven returning players from the 2005 club team and high hopes to ensure that our promotion was deserved. As a new intercollegiate program we decided to step up our schedule and drop a lot of the games versus club teams and pick up as many games as we could against other intercollegiate programs. In so doing we had to travel for a lot of our games, all in all we traveled 6,685 miles during the course of the season, this was just to get us to the games. The road trips were many, the wins too far in between but the program's growth was cemented and was here to stay.
This is the first WWCC Region IX Goal (Vic Hiler vs WNCC in Rock Springs)
Here is the 2006 Team Roster
0 - Brandon Ludtke - Sophomore - Keeper
2 - Jordan Atkinson - Freshman - Forward
3 - Marcus Menegassi - Freshman - Midfield
4 - Brant Harsh - Freshman - Defense
5 - Tyler Gilmore - Sophomore - Defense
6 - Tanner Brimhall - Captain - Sophomore - Defense
7 - Zabdiel Pimental - Freshman - Midfield
8 - Seth Lancaster - Captain - Sophomore - Defense
9 - Willie Padilla - Freshman - Forward
10 - Stephen Taggart - Captain - Sophomore - Defense
11 - Tyler Cox - Freshman - Midfield
12 - Chad Zueck - Freshman - Midfield
13 - JJ Facinelli - Freshman - Midfield
14 - Lionel Sakou - Sophomore - Midfield
15 - Matt Freeman - Sophomore - Forward
17 - Eric Nieters - Freshman - Midfield
18 - Mulugeta Fitamo - Freshman - Midfield
19 - Nick Nelson - Sophomore - Defense
20 - Victor Hiler - Captain - Sophomore - Forward
24 - Brant Makowski - Freshman - Defense
25 - Ben Dietrich - Freshman - Midfield
26 - Jesse Cornejo - Freshman - Keeper
Head Coach - Jeff Atkinson
Assistant Coach - Matt Robles
Student Trainer - Jessica Marshall
Athletic Director - Jackie Freeze
2006 Schedule and Results
Team Results (4 - 13 - 3)
8/25/06 - vs North Idaho College @Coeur d'Alene ID - L (0 - 5)
8/26/06 - vs Madison Dragons @ Rexburg ID - L (1 - 7)
9/2/06 - vs Central Wyoming @ Rock Springs WY - W (9 - 0)
9/8/06 - vs Colorado Mountain College @ Glenwood Springs CO - W (5 - 2)
9/9/06 - vs Western Nebraska CC @Scottsbluff NE - L (0 - 3)
9/12/06 - vs Utah State @ Logan UT - L (0 - 6)
9/15/06 - vs Eastern Utah @ Ogden UT - W (1 - 0)
9/16/06 - vs Utah Valley State @ Ogden UT - L (0 - 3)
9/16/06 - vs Weber State "B" @ Ogden UT - L (0 - 4)
9/19/06 - vs Western Nebraska CC @ Rock Springs WY - L (1 - 5)
9/23/06 - vs LCCC @ Cheyenne WY - L (0 - 2)
9/26/06 - vs Utah State @ Rock Springs WY - L (0 - 4)
9/28/06 - vs Central Wyoming @ Riverton WY - L (1 - 2)
10/3/06 - vs Utah Valley State @ Orem UT - L (1 - 5)
10/7/06 - vs Air Force Prep @ Glenwood Springs CO - T (0 - 0)
10/7/06 - vs Western State @ Glenwood Springs CO - W (2 - 1)
10/8/06 - vs SLCC @ Glenwood Springs CO - L (0 - 5)
10/14/06 -vs Southern Utah @ Cedar City UT - T (3 - 3)
10/14/06 - vs Weber State "A" @ Cedar City UT - T (1 - 1)
10/20/06 - vs LCCC @ Cheyenne WY - L (0 - 6)
2006 WWCC Team Review
The 2006 season for the men's Mustang soccer was a learning experience for the team. As a newly approved NJCAA intercollegiate team the Mustangs faced stiffer competition and many road trips. The Mustangs finished the season with four wins, thirteen losses and 3 ties. Due to being a new team in the NJCAA ranks, the Mustangs had a hard time scheduling home games and played seventeen of their twenty games away from Rock Springs. The Mustangs scheduled and played eleven teams who are in the NJCAA and nine of their opponents were NCAA, or four year schools.
Even through the road trips and the tough opponents the Mustangs were able to find success and progressed as the year progressed. Their last five games saw the Mustangs finish with one win, two losses and two ties. The Mustangs were also able to set many new school records including goals scored in a game (9) and shots in a game (48) both set versus Central Wyoming.
The Mustangs sophomore class leaves with the first state club championship (2005) and the programs first intercollegiate win (5 - 2 versus Colorado Mountain). The Mustangs will miss the sophomore's spirit and desire to win. Finishing their Western Wyoming career are Brandon Ludtke (Keeper), Tyler Gilmore (Defense), Tanner Brimhall (Defense), Seth Lancaster (Defense), Stephen Taggart (Defense), Lionel Sakou (Midfield), Matt Freeman (Forward), Nick Nelson (Defense) and Victor Hiler (Forward). As this sophomore class moves on they leave with various Western Wyoming Soccer career records including most career goals (Victor Hiler - 27), most career offensive points (Victor Hiler - 60), most career starts (Tanner Brimhall - 34) and most career saves (Brandon Ludtke - 225).
The Mustang freshman class was also a bright spot on this year's squad. Thirteen members of the twenty-two team members were freshmen with the majority of them seeing significant playing time throughout the season. In fact, two freshmen started every game this year (Ben Dietrich and Eric Nieters) and four freshman saw action in every half that we played this season (Tyler Cox, Ben Dietrich, Marcus Menegassi and Eric Nieters). The Mustangs will return their second leading scorer (JJ Faceinelli) and seven other freshmen players who recorded offensive points (Tyler Cox, Ben Dietrich, Brant Harsh, Marcus Menegassi, Eric Nieters, Willie Padilla and Chad Zueck). Jesse Cornejo the Mustangs freshman keeper who saw some quality playing time, especially towards the end of the season, recorded 42 saves this season and should be a solid keeper for the Mustangs his sophomore year.
Even with a late start to recruiting the recruits that we were able to sign on were good solid recruits. We had seven returning players from the 2005 club team and high hopes to ensure that our promotion was deserved. As a new intercollegiate program we decided to step up our schedule and drop a lot of the games versus club teams and pick up as many games as we could against other intercollegiate programs. In so doing we had to travel for a lot of our games, all in all we traveled 6,685 miles during the course of the season, this was just to get us to the games. The road trips were many, the wins too far in between but the program's growth was cemented and was here to stay.
This is the first WWCC Region IX Goal (Vic Hiler vs WNCC in Rock Springs)Here is the 2006 Team Roster
0 - Brandon Ludtke - Sophomore - Keeper
2 - Jordan Atkinson - Freshman - Forward
3 - Marcus Menegassi - Freshman - Midfield
4 - Brant Harsh - Freshman - Defense
5 - Tyler Gilmore - Sophomore - Defense
6 - Tanner Brimhall - Captain - Sophomore - Defense
7 - Zabdiel Pimental - Freshman - Midfield
8 - Seth Lancaster - Captain - Sophomore - Defense
9 - Willie Padilla - Freshman - Forward
10 - Stephen Taggart - Captain - Sophomore - Defense
11 - Tyler Cox - Freshman - Midfield
12 - Chad Zueck - Freshman - Midfield
13 - JJ Facinelli - Freshman - Midfield
14 - Lionel Sakou - Sophomore - Midfield
15 - Matt Freeman - Sophomore - Forward
17 - Eric Nieters - Freshman - Midfield
18 - Mulugeta Fitamo - Freshman - Midfield
19 - Nick Nelson - Sophomore - Defense
20 - Victor Hiler - Captain - Sophomore - Forward
24 - Brant Makowski - Freshman - Defense
25 - Ben Dietrich - Freshman - Midfield
26 - Jesse Cornejo - Freshman - Keeper
Head Coach - Jeff Atkinson
Assistant Coach - Matt Robles
Student Trainer - Jessica Marshall
Athletic Director - Jackie Freeze
2006 Schedule and Results
Team Results (4 - 13 - 3)
8/25/06 - vs North Idaho College @Coeur d'Alene ID - L (0 - 5)
8/26/06 - vs Madison Dragons @ Rexburg ID - L (1 - 7)
9/2/06 - vs Central Wyoming @ Rock Springs WY - W (9 - 0)
9/8/06 - vs Colorado Mountain College @ Glenwood Springs CO - W (5 - 2)
9/9/06 - vs Western Nebraska CC @Scottsbluff NE - L (0 - 3)
9/12/06 - vs Utah State @ Logan UT - L (0 - 6)
9/15/06 - vs Eastern Utah @ Ogden UT - W (1 - 0)
9/16/06 - vs Utah Valley State @ Ogden UT - L (0 - 3)
9/16/06 - vs Weber State "B" @ Ogden UT - L (0 - 4)
9/19/06 - vs Western Nebraska CC @ Rock Springs WY - L (1 - 5)
9/23/06 - vs LCCC @ Cheyenne WY - L (0 - 2)
9/26/06 - vs Utah State @ Rock Springs WY - L (0 - 4)
9/28/06 - vs Central Wyoming @ Riverton WY - L (1 - 2)
10/3/06 - vs Utah Valley State @ Orem UT - L (1 - 5)
10/7/06 - vs Air Force Prep @ Glenwood Springs CO - T (0 - 0)
10/7/06 - vs Western State @ Glenwood Springs CO - W (2 - 1)
10/8/06 - vs SLCC @ Glenwood Springs CO - L (0 - 5)
10/14/06 -vs Southern Utah @ Cedar City UT - T (3 - 3)
10/14/06 - vs Weber State "A" @ Cedar City UT - T (1 - 1)
10/20/06 - vs LCCC @ Cheyenne WY - L (0 - 6)
2006 WWCC Team Review
The 2006 season for the men's Mustang soccer was a learning experience for the team. As a newly approved NJCAA intercollegiate team the Mustangs faced stiffer competition and many road trips. The Mustangs finished the season with four wins, thirteen losses and 3 ties. Due to being a new team in the NJCAA ranks, the Mustangs had a hard time scheduling home games and played seventeen of their twenty games away from Rock Springs. The Mustangs scheduled and played eleven teams who are in the NJCAA and nine of their opponents were NCAA, or four year schools.
Even through the road trips and the tough opponents the Mustangs were able to find success and progressed as the year progressed. Their last five games saw the Mustangs finish with one win, two losses and two ties. The Mustangs were also able to set many new school records including goals scored in a game (9) and shots in a game (48) both set versus Central Wyoming.
The Mustangs sophomore class leaves with the first state club championship (2005) and the programs first intercollegiate win (5 - 2 versus Colorado Mountain). The Mustangs will miss the sophomore's spirit and desire to win. Finishing their Western Wyoming career are Brandon Ludtke (Keeper), Tyler Gilmore (Defense), Tanner Brimhall (Defense), Seth Lancaster (Defense), Stephen Taggart (Defense), Lionel Sakou (Midfield), Matt Freeman (Forward), Nick Nelson (Defense) and Victor Hiler (Forward). As this sophomore class moves on they leave with various Western Wyoming Soccer career records including most career goals (Victor Hiler - 27), most career offensive points (Victor Hiler - 60), most career starts (Tanner Brimhall - 34) and most career saves (Brandon Ludtke - 225).
The Mustang freshman class was also a bright spot on this year's squad. Thirteen members of the twenty-two team members were freshmen with the majority of them seeing significant playing time throughout the season. In fact, two freshmen started every game this year (Ben Dietrich and Eric Nieters) and four freshman saw action in every half that we played this season (Tyler Cox, Ben Dietrich, Marcus Menegassi and Eric Nieters). The Mustangs will return their second leading scorer (JJ Faceinelli) and seven other freshmen players who recorded offensive points (Tyler Cox, Ben Dietrich, Brant Harsh, Marcus Menegassi, Eric Nieters, Willie Padilla and Chad Zueck). Jesse Cornejo the Mustangs freshman keeper who saw some quality playing time, especially towards the end of the season, recorded 42 saves this season and should be a solid keeper for the Mustangs his sophomore year.
Notes and Memories from the 2006 Season
Our first road trip of the year we took the supposed to be 12 hour trip to North Idaho. The bus was overheating and it took us nearly three hours just to get to Evanston WY. He did get the problem fixed but after a long dinner we pulled into Butte MT very late and the drive the next day was longer that we anticipated. Needless to say we did not play our best in our first intercollegiate game, but we did look good in our road black uniforms. We picked up our first win of the season the next week as we dismantled Central Wyoming College and looked pretty good putting many passes together.
The following week was another terribly long road trip. First we went to Glenwood Springs CO and played Colorado Mountain College. It was also a great game for us, it also saw Victor Hiler score twice in the span of 10 seconds. He stole the kickoff and saw the keeper not paying attention and put in a shot from around half. I remember JJ Facinelli being really sick this trip almost on the verge of needing medical attention. The trip that night from Glenwood Springs to Denver was horrible as the bus was crowded and could not go faster than 30 mph. We got into Denver around 1:30am and we had to leave for Scottsbluff NE at 7:00am so to say the least it was a short night. We made it on time to play Western Nebraska and ended up losing to them and Matt Freeman got a red card with about 1 minute to play in the game.
The next week we were in Utah for games, we played Utah State in Logan during the week and it was really hot and humid. We did not play that great and saw them get an early lead on us. Later on that week we played in the Diadora Tournament in Ogden UT. We had to change venues because there was so much rain. Our first opponent Eastern UT did not show up to the tournament so he got a forfeit. Our second opponent was Utah Valley State. They were a good team but we played them very tough losing our chance to be victorious at the end of the match. The UVSU team ended up winning the tournament. The next day in a mud pit we played what might have been our worst game of the year and lost to Weber State's "B" team talk about a frustrating tournament and start of a season. We had so much potential but could not seem to found our strengths or any consistency.
In the next seven days we played both of our region opponents, losing big to Western Nebraska at home but scoring our first Region IX goal (Victor Hiler on a pk). We also traveled to Cheyenne to face LCCC and played them very tough losing on an early PK and a late insurance goal. Once again our consistency was a factor.
We played Utah State at home and Central Wyoming on the road during the next week. Both of these games were re-matches from earlier games. We played Utah State very tough but could not keep them off of the scoreboard enough, much better than the time before. We were told before the game that one of our team captains Stephen Taggart was in the hospital with emergency appendectomy surgery. We also lost leading scorer Victor Hiler for the next game due to a red card. We then embarrassingly lost to Central Wyoming, a team we destroyed earlier in the year, once again we were never sure what team was going to show up to which games.
Two road trips highlighted the following week, we were tied with Utah Valley at halftime in Orem UT before they pulled away in the second half. The UVSU game is were the work horse award was first discussed and awarded. We also traveled to the Colorado Mountain College Tournament in Glenwood Springs CO. Our first days opponents were Air Force Prep whom we tied zero to zero. The next opponent was Western State from CO who we defeated and we had a chance to win our group with that victory. It all depended on our next game versus Salt Lake Community College. SLCC was a quality team that used some luck with the mud and water in front of our goal to jump on us early. We also missed a handful of shots that we seemed to always hit in other games. Seth Lancaster was sent to the hospital with stitches after a collision with a SLCC player.
The final week of the regular season saw our home finale versus LCCC snowed out and a road trip to Cedar City UT to play both Southern Utah University and Weber State's "A" team. The team was finally becoming more consistent and we were confident that not only could we have defeated LCCC but that we would give the two teams from UT good games. We should have defeated both teams in UT but we just did not know how to finish off teams. We ended with two ties against pretty good teams, but as I said before we should have beaten both of those teams. I still remember Stephen Taggart's goal versus Weber State as he was fouled probably five times on his way to the goal.
The final game of the season was in the Region IX tournament in Cheyenne against LCCC. Just our luck we got to play the host school. Maybe we were overconfident but we let the LCCC team score about 4 goals in a 5-6 minute period at the start of the second half to seal our fate. Our season ended with a lot more losses than we had hoped for and a lot of miles of the old WWCC bus.
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