Tapia plays big in net to help LCCC men to win

May 6—CHEYENNE — Manny Tapia last played goalkeeper as a high school junior at Niwot High.

He was thrust into that role when starter Mario Munoz suffered an injury prior to the first two rounds of the 2017 Colorado Class 4A playoffs. Tapia stopped seven shots to help the Cougars to a pair of victories.

Laramie County Community College men's soccer coach Vince Gibson knew of Tapia's history in net, which is why he felt comfortable only carrying three full-fledged keepers on this spring's roster instead of his typical four.

COVID-19 contact tracing sidelined the Golden Eagles' regular goalies and pressed Tapia into action Wednesday morning.

The sophomore stopped all nine shots he faced to help No. 18-ranked LCCC to a 1-0 victory over Northwest College.

"I needed to be confident," Tapia said. "I knew my defense wasn't going to let me down if I just did my job. I was kind of nervous early, but my coaches kept telling me to relax and stay calm.

"I got more comfortable the more saves I made."

LCCC (4-1-1) had known for a week that Tapia would most likely start Wednesday's match. Gibson has made sure Tapia got occasional goalkeeper training throughout the spring.

"I'm the kind of person who doesn't like surprises. I want to be prepared for whatever comes next," Gibson said. "We've prepared just in case he ever needed to play in goal. I'm glad we've done that because we needed it, and he did a great job.

"He made some good saves, and I was really impressed with some of his punts and goal kicks."

The Eagles hadn't played since April 19 because of COVID-19 contact tracing. They limited Northwest to 16 shots overall, while putting 11 of their 14 shots on frame.

LCCC's goal came in the 82nd minute when Noe Ortiz-Pena used his head to flick a Tapia goal kick past the Trappers' defense. Sophomore Jonathan Jimenez-Flores ran onto the ball that left him one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and buried a low shot for a 1-0 advantage.

"We wanted a quick restart to put some pressure on, and (Ortiz-Pena) gave me a good ball," Jimenez-Flores said. "We wanted to attack the whole game, and we got a lot of chances that didn't go in. It was frustrating, but we kept pushing through it and tried to keep attacking.

"We knew one of those shots was going to go in."

Considering the rust, Gibson was pleased with his team's performance.

"There was definitely some rust and fitness issues, but we played well," he said. "We're getting more and more guys back out to training. We should be good to go by the time the postseason starts."

LCCC 1, NORTHWEST 0

Halftime: 0-0.

Goal: LCCC, Jimenez-Flores (Tapia and Ortiz-Pena), 82.

Shots: NWC 16, LCCC 14. Shots on goal: NWC 9, LCCC 11. Saves: NWC 10 (Sandoval 9, Team 1); LCCC 9 (Tapia).

Corner kicks: NWC 6, LCCC 6. Offsides: NWC 1, LCCC 1. Fouls: NWC 14, LCCC 15. Yellow cards: NWC 2 (Mullen, 77. Gonzales-Gutierrez, 85); LCCC 1 (Naite, 79).

Jeremiah Johnke is the WyoSports editor. He can be reached at jjohnke@wyosports.net or 307-633-3137. Follow him on Twitter at @jjohnke.