The Barton County men had a dominant week starting conference play with three of the weaker teams in their region. On Wednesday September 10, the Cougars rolled to an 11-0 win over Dodge City CC. It was a dominant performance from start to finish as Barton scored eight goals in the second half. Springfield Demize midfielder Oscar Narvaez managed one goal and one assist on the contest. On Saturday, Barton dominated first year program Cowley College by a count of 6-0. Demize defender Ous Senghore notched his first goal of the year as Narvaez and James Neighbour both recorded assists in the contest. Yesterday, Barton wrapped up their week with an 8-0 win over Hesston College. Narvaez added two more goals in the contest upping his season total to six. The win extends their record to 9-0 on the season, and 3-0 in region 6 play.
Tuesday, the second regular season rankings were revealed and Barton maintained their #4 national ranking, as the top five remained unchanged. St. Louis-Meramec moved up to #7 with their only loss on the season coming to the hands of Barton. Also, Ous Senghore (pictured) was named the region 6 men’s player of the week for the week of Sept. 8-15 for his strong defensive play. Ous coupled with fellow Demize defender James Neighbour and GK Donovan Dowling have yielded only two goals in nine contests. On tap this week for the Cougars is a tough non-conference opponent in Laramie County (WY) on Saturday night, one of the three participating teams in the Great Plains Districts last year (Along with Barton and Jefferson College).
Looking at the past national champions in the NJCAA, it is clear that Missouri, St. Louis in particular, have been the class of the country. When soccer was first introduced as a participating sport in the NJCAA, St. Louis-Flo Valley and St. Louis-Meramec were the class of the country winning a combined 12 national championships between 1967 and 1989, with Flo Valley taking ten, and Meramec adding two. That’s half of the possible titles in that time period. Also, in 1998 and 99 State Fair Community College out of Sedalia, Missouri won consecutive national championships. The titles were later revoked from State Fair because of eligibility issues with some of their players. Barton will be attempting to bring the first national championship to Kansas, away from the traditional Missouri power.
NJCAA Correspondent, Austin Dowling
Editors Note: my introduction to soccer came in 1974 at Florissant Valley CC, where I was a staff photographer at the CC paper as well as working for the Suburban Journals in St Louis. Flo-Valley defeated Meramec for the title that year while SLU and SIU-Edwardsville finished #2 and #3 in the final polls in Division 1. That’s the on-field tradition we can build as a community if we are committed. This site is an effort to create the environment soccer junkies like these four can thrive in. I must be doing something right since the local rag called me for background on the story but didn’t offer any attribution. Competition is great, isn’t it 
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Ole - don’t worry…anyone involved in local soccer knows who to look to for any Springfield soccer information. We will NOT find it in the Newsleader! Thanks for supporting everyone in our Soccer community.
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