Cardinal men take control, roll past Truckee Meadows

COEUR d'ALENE — The plan was simple for the North Idaho College men's soccer team on Thursday. 

Get control early. And keep it that way. 

Freshman defender Israel Joseph scored on an assist from freshman midfielder Leonardo Andrejic five minutes into the match, one of five first-half goals for the Cardinals in an 8-0 win over Truckee Meadows Community College of Reno, Nev., in Scenic West Athletic Conference play at Eisenwinter Field. 

Freshman midfielder Sebastiano Casini had a goal and two assists for NIC (9-4-1, 5-3-1 SWAC), which hosts Southern Idaho on Saturday. CSI (7-4-1, 7-1-1), which leads the conference, beat Pacific Northwest Christian (0-9, 0-9) 3-0 in other SWAC play on Thursday in Kennewick, Wash. 

NIC lost to CSI 1-0 on Sept. 13 in Jerome.

"We wanted to get ahold of the game early and keep it going," NIC coach Brad Williams said. "The guys stuck to the game plan. They knew how we wanted to play and defend and we did that for the entire time. They did everything we asked." 

Truckee Meadows is 3-8, 2-6. 

First half — 1, NIC, Israel Joseph (Leonardo Andrejic), 5:53. 2, NIC, Judah Straight (unassisted), 11:58. 3, NIC, Ivan Leon (Sebastiano Casini), 15:28. 4, NIC, Fabian Arguello (Andrejic), 16:51. 5, NIC, Daniel Gutierrez (Sebastiano Casini), 28:44. Second half — 6, NIC, Casini (unassisted), 46:33. 7, NIC, Lorian Aerts (unassisted), 58:33. 8, NIC, Amani Contreras (Casini), 67:10. 

Shots on goal — TMCC 6, NIC 16. 

Saves — TMCC, Dwayne Rodriguez-Mata 8; NIC, Indra Suarjana 6.

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