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12.02.06
- Juan Huerta put a loose ball in the net in
the final minutes of Saturday's game to send
the Falcons to the State Final Four. |
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More Photos |
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Freshman midfielder
Juan Huerta
(Bell HS)
made the most of his opportunity in the few minutes of
playing time he had in the Cerritos College men's soccer
Southern California Regional Playoff game at home
against El Camino College on Saturday afternoon. With
the winner advancing to the state championships, Huerta
put a loose ball into the lower right corner of the net
in the 88th minute to give the Falcons a 1-0 win. The
victory advances Cerritos into the state Final Four for
the second time in three years and they will play their
semi-final game next Friday against Fresno City College
at 10:00 a.m. at Fresno Pacific University. Back in 2004,
the Falcons reached the championship game, where they
were defeated by Santa Ana College, a team Cerritos
defeated in the second round.
This will be the
second meeting of the year between the Falcons (18-3-5)
and the Rams (17-1-7), as they faced off in the first
round of the Hartnell Tournament back on September 1. In
that game, Fresno City posted a 2-0 win to drop the
Falcons to 0-2 on the year. Since then, Cerritos has
gone 18-1-5 to earn their second-ever trip to the state
tournament, while Fresno City's only loss was a 2-1
decision to Mt. San Antonio College. In the other
semi-final game, Taft College, the #1-rated team from
Northern California, will square off against Los Angeles
Mission College, who has pulled off two road upsets to
reach the Final Four. They will play their game at 4:00
p.m. with the state championship game on Sunday at 10:00
a.m.
"Juan (Huerta) hasn't gotten as much playing
time this season as he would have liked, but he
never put his head down," said head coach
Benny Artiaga,
who was the top assistant when Cerritos made their first
state championship run. "The coaches have believed in
his ability all season long and he showed it by being
ready to make something happen when it presented itself.
He was inserted just a couple minutes prior to scoring
his goal and made something happen right away. That's
what good players do."
The Warriors were playing with one
man down for the final 11 minutes after Napoleon
Dominguez was called for his second yellow card after
pulling down freshman midfielder
Bryan Mejia
(Montebello HS)
just outside the box. That left more room for Cerritos
to pass the ball and Mejia was right there to get the
ball to Huerta, who scored his first goal of the season.
Cerritos defeated El Camino for the
third time this season, including the two times they
played in their South Coast Conference games and all
were by shutout. As they had in the other two meetings,
the Falcons were able to gain possession of the ball at
midfield whenever possession was up for grabs. They
parlayed that into several good scoring opportunities,
but had their shots go wide or were stopped by Warrior
goalkeeper Byron Espana. The Falcon defense, led by
sophomore
Marco Pulido
(South Gate HS)
and freshmen defender
Eusebio
Alvarez (Western
HS), were once again able to shut down
talented John Massaquoi, who did not get off a shot for
the third consecutive game.
But teams seemed tentative in the
first half with the play moving back and forth down the
field with little results. But in the second half, the
chances were becoming more frequent and the Warriors
were the first team to get stoned by a great play. On a
ball that was sent into the Falcon zone, the ball took a
high bounce and went over the head of sophomore
goalkeeper
Miguel Lopez
(Vocational Tech,
NV HS). Luckily he had Alvarez and freshman
Luis Segovia
(California HS)
there to clear the ball away before Warrior forward
Ryohei Amaga could put the ball into the net. Just four
minutes later, freshman forward
Andy Rico
(Lynwood HS),
who scored the goal to defeat Santa Ana, looked to
repeat his performance, but his header off a corner kick
went over the net. |
