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"I am so proud of this team and the
way they have battled all season long..."
- Benny Artiaga |
"When people
think about defense in soccer, they generally think
about the three defenders and the goalkeeper," said
second-year Cerritos College men's soccer coach
Benny Artiaga.
"But not here. All 11 of our players concentrate on
defense and we work hard to turn our defense into
offensive opportunities."
It worked for the fifth time in the last
six games, as the Falcons posted a 1-0 victory over Taft
College on Sunday morning to capture their first-ever
California Community Colleges Commission on Athletics
state championship, which was held at Fresno Pacific
University. Cerritos (20-3-5) won their last six games
of the season, with five of them being by 1-0 scores,
including their last four games.
Freshman midfielder
Juan Huerta
(Bell HS)
scored in the 35th minute to account for the game's lone
goal, which matched his same feat in the team's third
round playoff win against El Camino College. Just as he
did against the Warriors, Huerta came on just a few
minutes before he was giving an opportunity to score the
most important goal in school history.
"It's great to be able to contribute on
such a great team as this one," said Huerta, who scored
just the two goals all year. "The coaches have always
told us that we need to be prepared to take advantage of
opportunities when they come our way because we never
know when they will happen. Fortunately when the ball
came to me I was able to score and help our team win."
On the play, the ball was sent into the
left corner of the field, where sophomore midfielder
Eric
Gonzalez (Huntington
Park HS) was able to gain possession of it.
He sent it across towards the left side of the box,
where Huerta turned and sent a shot that got under the
arms of Cougar goalkeeper Victor Chinchilla.
"A lot of these players know what it's
like to be winners from their days in high school,"
added Artiaga. "They didn't get caught up in the
offensive attacks they knew Taft would throw at us. We
tried to make sure that they didn't get much spacing
because that's when they are most dangerous. We were
able to keep them from making more than two consecutive
passes and shut them down when they got to the back
third of the field."
It was definitely a team effort in
winning the state championship, as a defender was named
the tournament's Most Valuable Player. Freshman
Eusebio
Alvarez (Western
HS), who helped anchor the defense that did
not allow a goal in the last four games of the season.
Not to be overshadowed, sophomore
Marco Pulido
(South Gate HS)
and freshman
Luis Segovia
(California HS)
comprised the defensive line, but they were assisted by
the entire team throughout the season.
At the outset of the game, Cerritos
controlled the ball the majority of the time and kept
the pressure on the Cougar defense. Normally, Taft likes
to leave three players back and push the rest of the
players into potential scoring position. But with the
Falcon offensive pressure, Taft had to pull back and
didn't get a chance to see the Cerritos side of the
field until after 20 minutes of the game had passed.
But, when Taft was able to move the ball
forward, they did get their chances. Cerritos dodged a
major bullet just five minutes after sophomore
goalkeeper
Miguel Lopez
(Vocational Tech,
NV HS) made a point blank save on Octavio
Median. Cougar Carlos Aguilar had a clear shot at the
net after Lopez slipped getting into position, but he
hit the crossbar which would have given Taft the lead.
After the back end of the first half was
dominated by Taft scoring opportunities, the second half
belonged to the Falcons. The shift in the game didn't
happen until after Lopez was slowed by a collision in
the 40th minute after making a save on a shot by
Christian Perez. In the 63rd minute, sophomore forward
Joshua Meyer
(Cerritos HS),
who played on the 2004 Falcon team that advanced to the
state championship game, was turned away on a good
scoring opportunity. Then, in the 65th minute sophomore
midfielder
Edgar Saldana
(California HS)
stole the ball deep in Taft territory and got off a high
percentage shot that rolled along the goal line before
being directed away.
"I am so proud of this team and the way
they have battled all season long," said Artiaga. "We
were able to avenge two of our three losses this season
(Fresno City and Mt. San Antonio), maintained our focus
on what we wanted to do each game and went on to win 20
games and the first state championship in school history
for men's soccer."
After an 0-2 start on consecutive 2-0
losses, the Falcons went 20-1-5 the remainder of the
season and allowed two goals in a game in their other
loss while posting 15 shutouts. |
