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In what can be best described as
playoff atmosphere, the Cerritos College men's soccer
team played a very tightly contested game against Oxnard
College on Friday afternoon at home. The Falcons and
Condors played to a 0-0 draw which extends the Cerritos
unbeaten streak to six games, as they are now 5-2-1 on
the year, while Oxnard is now 3-2-2. Cerritos will now
travel to Southwestern College on Monday for a 4:00 p.m.
game.
Despite the scoreless affair, the
Falcons put the majority of pressure on the Oxnard
goalkeeper and missed out on several scoring
opportunities. With scoring threat
Joshua Meyer
(Cerritos HS)
being marked closely, Cerritos saw freshman forward
Brian Alvarez
(Salesian HS)
take the initiative and had several scoring chances in
the game, with Meyer serving as the decoy. In the 60th
minute, Meyer sent a pass into the center of the box for
Alvarez, whose shot missed on the low right corner. In
the 64th minute, freshman defender
Juan Ochoa
(Paramount HS),
who played the entire second half and was flawless,
lifted a beautiful lead pass to Alvarez, who took a shot
but it went over the net.
In one of their best chances, Meyer
had an opportunity to score, as freshman
Andy Rico
(Lynwood HS)
led him with a nice pass, but his attempt went over the
net. The Condors made a last-minute run to try and get
one past Falcon goalkeeper
Ivan Mercado
(Paramount HS),
but to no avail. The Cerritos defense, anchored by
sophomore
Marco Pulido
(South Gate HS),
freshman
Ivan Perez
(Chaparral, NV HS),
Ochoa and freshman
Edson
Portillo (Western
HS), were so rock solid, Mercado was not
asked to make a single save on the day. The shutout was
the fifth in a row for the team and Mercado.
Also playing a superior game was
freshman midfielder
Juan Davila
(Birmingham HS),
who was all over the field making runs and also sent a
nice pass off a free kick to freshman
Bryan Mejia
(Montebello HS),
but he missed on his shot towards the lower left corner. |
