On Sunday September 11th NEO Men's soccer traveled to Tonkawa, OK to take on conference foe Northern Oklahoma College.
In the early going the game was tough to predict. Both teams found their way into the offensive third of the field on a regular basis. As the first half wore on NEO seemed to be the team with the most threatening attacks. Late in the half NEO advance and organized an attack down the right wing. Tyler Douthitt played a dangerous ball into the 6 yard box where 2 NEO players were waiting to put the goal away. The cross never found a Norsemen however, instead it deflected off of a defender past the NOC keeper. 
In the second half NEO would find the goal two more time in an unconventional way. Early in the half NEO defensive midfielder Andre Dutra would intercept a pass off a set kick to set up a break away. Dutra timed his pass at the end of the break away, forcing NOC's keeper into a one v. one with Jaffet Rodriguez. The one v.one resulted in a foul and a penalty kick for NEO. Pedro Rodriguez completed the penalty attempt to put NEO up 2-0. Approximately 20 minutes after going up by 2 a similar play developed giving NEO a second PK attempt in the half. Jaffet Rodriguez completed this attempt. The game looked to be well in hand at this point, but NOC would add tension to the game with a goal in the last 15 minutes to make it 3-1. NEO would go on to weather the storm of NOC's come back efforts to play to a final score of 3-1.
"An own goal and 2 PK's are an unusual way to earn a victory," said Coach Parrigon, "but you have to be creating offensive chances for those things to happen." I'm proud of the way we played today. We attacked with combinations that we haven't showed yet this year, and our defense played a bend but don't break style all day. Road wins are tough to come by in our conference, and historically have been very difficult to come away with in Tonkawa."
NEO will be back in action at home when they take on Rose College on Sept 14th.