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Through the first nine games of the year, the
Cerritos College men's soccer team has won eight of
them, with the most recent being a 6-0
non-conference victory at Orange Coast College on
Tuesday afternoon. The Falcons, 8-1-0 on the year,
will now open South Coast Conference action next
Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. when they host Compton College.
Coming off a less than inspiring 6-3 win over Golden
West last Friday, the Falcons showed great effort
and played hard from beginning to end. Cerritos got
started early and scored in the game's third minute
when freshman midfielder
Salvador
Melendrez (Long Beach Millikan HS)
fed freshman forward
Luis
Gonzalez (Long Beach Millikan HS),
who ripped a left-footed shot off of Pirate
goalkeeper Dane Fernandez's hands and into the back
of the net. In
the 10th minute, sophomore defender Michael
Vargas (Artesia HS) made a
great read on a long switch from Orange Coast and
then made a run down the sideline and found
Gonzalez, who played him right back and Vargas did
the rest with a strong finish.
Head coach
Benny
Artiaga said, "Today was a real fun
game to watch. We came at them immediately and
set the tone from the first minute. We had great
defensive efforts from the entire team but
Oscar Rodriguez ( Long Beach
Wilson HS) imposed himself really well
along with Michael Vargas and Salvador Melendrez.
Offensively, Luis (Gonzalez) continued his
torrid scoring streak while Timmy Seo
( Los Alamitos HS) put on a clinic
offensively. It was important for us to finish
strong and not get complacent on defense and I
think our boys did a good job of that."
The lead grew when sophomore midfielder Alex
Munoz (Corona Centennial HS)
collected a pass in the midfield and made a diagonal
run with the ball to the far right. As he turned the
defender, he made a big switch to the weak side
where Seo headed the ball in. The team's fourth goal
came in the 50th minute goal and was special, as Melendrez
made a great individual run down the outside, where
he then made a spectacular heal pass back to Seo,
who fired a rocket past the goalkeeper. Before the
end of the game Gonzalez found sophomore midfielder
Ricky Reyes (Hawthorne HS/Pasadena
City College), who made a run down the outside
and put the ball away. Munoz finished the scoring
with a pass from Reyes in the 80th minute.
Sophomore goalkeeper
Diego
Millan (Paramount HS) had five
saves and posted his second shutout of the season.
Pirate goalkeepers Fernandez and Brian Rippeto
combined for 11 saves.
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