Fresh off a three win week including a road victory over a ranked opponent, Rayssa Neres and Reyna Gonzalez of the Barton Community College women's soccer team has been named the KJCCC recipients of player and goalkeeper awards respectively for week five of the season.
The honors are the third consecutive week the Cougars have been awarded, the second time for each as Gonzalez earned week three's goalkeeper award while Neres makes it consecutive weeks earning the player awards.
Neres, the Jayhawk Conference leading attacker piled up the numbers this past week in leading Barton to the three wins including a 5-1 victory at 15th ranked Cloud County on Saturday to move the Cougars into a first place tie atop the West Division. The freshman from Brazil knocked in two goals and an assist in Monday's win hosting Garden City, matched a program fourth best single game effort of twelve points (5 goals, 2 assists) in Wednesday's victory over Pratt, then added seven more points against the 15th ranked T-birds with three goals and assist. Knocking in the eventual game winner just 1:10 in second half action, Neres tacked on another goal twelve minutes later, then following a T-bird goal, distributed and scored the final two goals for a 5-1 lead in the 77th minute.
The ten goal and four assist week increased Nere's conference leading totals to twenty goals and forty-eight points while ranking in the top six nationally and climbs into the program top ten list in both categories.
Gonzalez was a big part of Barton's success last week earning two of the three wins, turning back sixteen shots for a .941 save percentage. Collecting three saves in the first half against Garden City, Gonzalez nearly single handily protected a 1-0 lead Saturday until the Barton offense got rolling in a road upset win at 15th ranked Cloud County. Rejecting a career high tying thirteen saves, coincidentally occurring in last season's game at Cloud County, the sophomore from Liberal thwarted nine attempts in first half action with most coming on big time net protections. From full laid out horizontal stops, close range rejections, scrambling to turn away rebounded shots, and winning the battle of 1v1, Gonzalez kept the net clean until surrendering a lone second half goal coming on a redirected header from a free kick.
Now tied atop the Jayhawk West standings with Hutchinson at 5-0-1, Barton's overall record stands at 6-2-1 heading into Wednesday's 2:00 p.m. kick-off hosting Northwest Kansas Technical College (2-4-0, 2-4-1).