West Texas FC gave its supporters a tough defensive effort in its home finale on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Goalkeeper Tomas Butkovic had a clean sheet to lead the West Texas FC to a 1-0 win over the Lubbock Matadors SC in a USL League 2 Ranger Division match at Astound Broadband Stadium.<\/p>\n
West Texas FC (4-4-3, 15 points) scored in the 14th minute on an own goal from the Lubbock Matadors SC (3-6-2, 11 points).<\/p>\n
Butkovic preserved the shutout with a key save in the 89th minute. The Matadors missed a second shot following the save as it bounced off the crossbar.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my first clean sheet of the year, my last home game, so it was nice,\u201d said Butkovic, who hails from Sydney, Australia. \u201cI think we buckled in and we got the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know want to win games like that all the time, but sometimes it\u2019s fun to win games like that,\u201d Butkovic added. \u201cActually, a team like that, it\u2019s our rivals, so it\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Texas FC will be playing for pride when it visits the Lubbock Matadors SC at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in its season finale. \u00a0Only the top soccer team in the Ranger Division table advances to the postseason in the USL League 2. West Texas FC is well behind Texoma FC (8-3-0, 24 points), McKinney Chupacabras FC (7-2-2, 23 points) and the Denton Diablos (7-3-1, 22 points) in the race for the division\u2019s only playoff spot.<\/p>\n
West Texas FC\u2019s 2026 campaign included an in-season coaching change as Jesus Grajeda replaced Scotty Murray as the head man in charge during the club\u2019s first year in the USL League 2.<\/p>\n
Grajeda said Wednesday\u2019s three-point result meant everything to his players in their final home match. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely gritty, it was definitely gritty but all props to the boys,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cAt the end of day, they are boys that go out there and sacrifice themselves. I could not be more proud of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Texas FC\u2019s Diego Robles leads all of USL League 2 with 16 goals this season, but it was Butkovic who was the star on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no words to describe Tomas or the goalkeeper department,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cThey are absolute class. No words, just great.\u201d<\/p>\n
The own goal overshadowed a fine performance from Lubbock Matadors SC goalkeeper Jamie Berry, who made six saves in the second half.<\/p>\n
Berry blocked a pair of shots made by West Texas FC\u2019s Benjamin Patrick Buckley on a breakaway in the 73th minute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Texas FC gave its supporters a tough defensive effort in its home finale on Wednesday night. Goalkeeper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-366373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}