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Photo by
Juan Velez.
Goalkeeper Diego Milan blocks a shot
from Santa Rosa college Friday afternoon
to help Cerritos advance to the
championship game Sunday. |
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Photo
Gallery |
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Cerritos College
freshman forward
Luis
Gonzalez (Long Beach Millikan HS)
scored both goals to lead the Falcon men's soccer
team to a 2-1 overtime victory over Santa Rosa
College in the semi-finals of the CCCAA Soccer State
Championships on Friday morning at College of the
Canyons. The win sends the Falcons (21-4-1) into the
state championship game on Sunday at 10:00 a.m.,
where they will play South Coast Conference rival
Mt. San Antonio College. The meeting will be the
fourth this season with Cerritos winning all three of
the previous contests.
"We just beat a
premiere league team today," said head coach
Benny
Artiaga, who led Cerritos to their lone
state title in 2006. "The game basically came down
to the special play of Luis and the tremendous
goalkeeping of
Diego
Millan. Diego is playing his best ball
of the year and came up with two unbelievable saves
that gave us a chance to win."
But it was
Gonzalez who gave the Falcons a 1-0 lead in the 17th
minute when he drilled a shot over Santa Rosa
goalkeeper Kiki Castro from 40 yards out. After
taking control at midfield, Gonzalez noticed that
Castro was away from his net and sent a shot that
went just under the crossbar.
After Santa Rosa
tied the game in the 73rd minute on a goal by
Rodrigo Ramos, who received a crossing pass in the
box from Trevor Hurst, the pace of the game picked
up dramatically. Over the final 15 minutes of the
game, both teams moved up the field and had great
scoring opportunities. But, the biggest save of the
game came in injury time in the second half when
Millan stoned Blake Hoerdeman with a sliding save.
Prior to that save, Hoerdeman hit the crossbar,
which would have given Santa Rosa the lead.
Then, in the first
overtime, Arnaldo Salazar just missed the net for
the Bear Cubs, while Millan posted another huge save
in the overtime period.
Nearing the end of
the first overtime, sophomore All-American
Michael Paz
(California HS) poked the ball away and was
able to feed the ball to Gonzalez. Moving to his
right side, Gonzalez scored into the left half of
the net, which turned out to be the game-winning
goal.
"You know,
sometimes you just have the applaud the play of
Luis," added Artiaga. "The first goal he scored was
just an example of how well he knows where he is on
the field and how the goalkeeper is set up. But as a
team, we weren't about to sit back and let them take
this game from us (after they tied the game). They
are probably the best defensive team I've seen since
our team in 2006. But we're a pretty good defensive
team, too."
Holding their lead
in the first half and during the second half,
Cerritos turned to their defense to maintain the
lead. Sophomore
Jonathan
Rivas (Santa Fe HS), along
with freshmen
Rene
Hernandez (Warren HS),
Fabian
Perez (Bellflower HS) and
Paul Montalvo (La Sierra HS)
turned the Bear Cubs away throughout the game, while
the offense kept the pressure up when needed. But
when the defense wasn't able to hold the Bear Cubs,
Millan was there to come up with one huge save after
another.
"Sometimes you need
to rely on luck," said Millan. "I trust our defense to
do their job and I just try to stay with the flow of the
game. But for me, the game is always 0-0. That's my
favorite number, zero." |
