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It's official! The
Cerritos College women's soccer team, fresh off
their second straight state championship, were named
the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)
Division III (non-scholarship) national champions in
the latest poll that came out on Tuesday. The
Falcons, who finished second in the country last
year, capped off their unbeaten season (22-0-4) with
a 4-2 overtime win over Santa Rosa College on
December 7 at College of the Canyons.
The Cerritos men's
team, who won their second state title in three
years, finished second in the national ranking for
the second time. Back in 2006, the team finished #2
in the men's poll and matched the same placing after
defeating Mt. San Antonio, 1-0 in the state
championship game. Cerritos (22-4-1) moved to the #2
spot from 13th in the last poll before the state
tournament and trailed only Herkimer (NY) Community
College, who concluded their season, 20-3.
But the national
title, the first for either soccer programs, has
four-year head coach
Ruben Gonzalez ecstatic. "This is a
great honor for the program. It's exciting for the
team, the school and the community. It's a great
honor for the sophomores, who put two years into the
program and believed in the coaching staff and the
program. We thought we would have gotten it last
year, but it's a great feeling to finally get it."
There was an
outside chance the men might capture the national
title, especially after their run at the end of the
season, where they went 10-1-0 in their last 11
games, with wins over nationally ranked teams in six
of those games. The Falcons also defeated Mt. San
Antonio four times on the year, while they handed
Santa Rosa College their only loss of the season in
the state semi-final game. The Bear Cubs were the
remaining unbeaten team in the country when Cerritos
defeated them, 2-1 in overtime.
According to men's
head coach
Benny
Artiaga, "First off, I want to
congratulate Herkimer on their national
championship; I'm sure they are very deserving. The
way we finished the season, it's hard to say we aren't
the nation's best team. Playing in our conference,
which is the toughest in the nation, we have to play
all of them twice, so it's tough for anyone to go
undefeated. It seems like a team from our area needs
to go undefeated to be considered for the national
title. Even though the system is the way it is, we
can only control what we do on the field. This does
not take an ounce away from what we accomplished
this year and I am just as proud of our guys either
way."
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