"Playing Mt. San
Antonio as many times as we did during the season
made us a better team and prepared us for this game
today," said Cerritos College men's soccer coach
Benny Artiaga just minutes after his
team posted a 1-0 win to capture the CCCAA State
Championship on Sunday at College of the Canyons. It
was the second title in three years for the Falcons,
who won their first state championship in 2006.
"They are a class program at Mt. San Antonio and I
have the greatest amount of respect for (head coach)
Juan Sanchez."
The Falcons took
an early 1-0 lead in the game when freshman
Luis
Gonzalez (Long Beach Millikan HS)
drove down the sideline and sent a pass across the
goal line. With Mountie goalkeeper Luis Ocampo
coming out to try and cut down the angle on
Gonzalez, the ball rolled through with Mt. SAC
defender George Gonzalez looking to clear the ball.
But, in his attempt, he sent the ball into his own
net, with Luis Gonzalez getting credit for the
tally.
The play
started when sophomore
Michael Paz
(California HS) took the ball at
midfield and used his speed to run past the Mountie
defenders before sending the pass to Gonzalez, who
scored all three of the team's goals in the state
tournament and was selected the Most Valuable
Player.
Back in 2004 when
the Falcons advanced to the state championship game
against Santa Ana, Sanchez was in his first (and
only) year as the Cerritos head coach. Although the
team lost the game, 3-1, Artiaga still considers
Sanchez to be a mentor to him and gives him a lot of
credit for helping him in his coaching career.
"This is such a
great feeling," said sophomore defender
Jonathan
Rivas (Santa Fe HS), one of
the team's captains. "We left a lot on the table
after losing to Santa Ana last year in the playoffs.
We wanted to come back and finish what the sophomore
had started."
The win over Mt.
San Antonio was the fourth this season by the
Falcons, who defeated the Mounties in the finals of
the Mt. SAC Tournament, as well as twice during
South Coast Conference play.
"Everybody had
their mark on defense and we kind of knew what to
expect from them," added Rivas. "With our team,
defense starts from the top, which really helps us
create our offense."
Sophomore
midfielder
Alex Munoz
(Corona Centennial HS) agreed, stating, "we
knew that beating a team as good as Mt. SAC was a
hard thing to do, but knowing we had to beat them
again for the championship was another thing. This
was the toughest of the four games and it was a real
physical game. We approached this year with the
mentality that nothing less than a state
championship was what we would accept. All of the
hard work and the hours on the freeway coming to and
from school was worth what we accomplished today."
With the Falcons
on the board early, they weren't satisfied with
pulling back and playing a defensive-minded game.
From the very start of the game, Cerritos pushed on
offense and had two plays where they felt penalty
kicks should have been called. Both Gonzalez and Paz
were pulled down in the box with no call, while
freshman
Stephan
Mangu (Hamilton HS) was turned
away by Orozco on apoint blank shot in the first
half, while Mangu missed an open net when Orozco
came out of his goal to get to a loose ball.
"We felt that we
could have been up by 3-0 in the first half, but
didn't stop putting pressure on them as much as we
could," said Artiaga. "There were a few times late
in the game where they put some pressure on us, but
we controlled the game for the most part."
Winning the state
championship seemed to be far from possible after a
stretch where the team dropped three of six games in
conference play and needed to put themselves in
position to even make the playoffs. After a 3-2 loss
to Los Angeles Harbor on October 31, the Falcons
went 8-0-0 with seven of those wins coming against
teams that were ranked nationally in the top 10.
"I guess the only
thing were have to wait for is to see if we are the
national champions," said Artiaga. The National
Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) will
release the national champion on December 16.
Artiaga feels that it will come down to his Falcons
and Herkimer County (NY) Community College, who finished their season
20-3-0. "We beat six teams that were ranked in the
top 10 during the season, so we'll see how that
works out. Of course I think our team is deserving
of the title. We finished #2 in the country when we
won the title in 2006, so hopefully we can improve
on that this year."
1st 2nd F
Mt. San Antonio 0 0
0
Cerritos
1
0 1
Scoring:
Mt. San Antonio:
None
Cerritos: Luis
Gonzalez (8th minute; unassisted)
Shots on Goal:
Mt. San Antonio: 9
Cerritos: 11
Keeper Saves:
Mt. San Antonio:
Luis Ocampo - 4 saves
Cerritos: Diego
Millan - 4 saves
Records:
Mt. San Antonio:
19-5-3 (Seeded #1 South)
Cerritos: 22-4-1
(Seeded #2 South)
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