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Photo by
Juan Velez.
Cerritos opens playoffs
with 2-1 win over Palomar College. |
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The Cerritos
College men's soccer team opened defense of their
state championship on Saturday with a 2-1 home win
over Palomar College. The Falcons (18-2-2), the
#3-seeded team in the playoffs, now advance to the
second round at home on Tuesday, while the Comets
(11-7-2) saw their season come to an end. Cerritos
will play the winner of the ECC Compton Center-Los
Angeles Harbor College game at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday.
The Falcons split their two games against Compton,
while they beat LA Harbor both times they faced each
other.>
"This was a
typical close first round game," said head coach
Benny Artiaga. "A lot of freshmen got
their first taste of playoff soccer. But after this
game, nobody on the team can be viewed as a freshman
anymore."
With a state
championships already under his belt, sophomore
Salvador Melendrez (Long Beach
Millikan HS) showed that experience by
assisting on both Cerritos goals, as well as
accidently playing a part in the lone Comets goal.
In the 25th minute, sophomore
Paul Montalvo (La Sierra HS)
sent a long ball into Palomar territory, where
sophomore
Andrew
Robles (St. John Bosco HS)
played it back across. Melendrez took that pass and
reversed it again to freshman
Ruben Gonzalez (Artesia HS),
who scored into the corner of the net for the game's
opening goal.
"That was an
important goal for us," added Artiaga. "Palomar was
sitting back most of the game and not challenging us
defensively very much. They're game threw us off a
little bit, and after being a little impatient early
on, we made the proper adjustments and that goal
showed the team that we could get in close and
score."
The Comets were
able to tie the game in the 37th minute when Erik
Torres sent a hard shot toward freshman goalkeeper Jhovany
Hernandez (Huntington Beach HS).
But before the ball could get to Hernandez, Melendrez
tried to clear the ball with a header. The ball was
deflected past Hernandez and it hit the inside of
the goal post and into the net.
But that didn't
discourage Melendrez, who assisted on the eventual
game-winning goal in the 51st minute. After Gonzalez
controlled the ball up the side of the field, he
passed to Melendrez, who chipped it back to Robles.
Seeing that the goalkeeper was screened by his own
defender, Robles took a hard shot that found the
upper corner of the net for a goal.
Cerritos had a
couple of other chances to score late in the game,
but Gonzalez saw his hard shot from in front of the
net go over the crossbar, while freshman
Cesar
Castillo (Eagle Valley, CO HS)
just missed on a diving header. Palomar also had a
chance to tie with game in the 88th minute, but
Hernandez punched the ball over the crossbar on
a header by Johnny Topete.
"I'm very proud of
our team's persistence and second half effort," said
Artiaga. "I thought Cesar and Ruben both did great
jobs on the outside and used their speed and 1v1
skills. We got our feet wet and played a tough
one-goal game. Starting to look like how things went
last year with all of our one-goal games, so it's
territory we're familiar with."
Scoring:
1st 2nd F
Palomar 1
0 1
Cerritos 1
1 2
Goals:
Palomar: Erik Torres
(37th minute)
Cerritos: Ruben
Gonzalez (25th minute; Salvador Melendrez assist);
Andrew Robles (51st minute; Salvador Melendrez
assist)
Shots on Goals:
Palomar: 4
Cerritos: 20
Keeper Saves:
Palomar:
Christian Negrete (10 saves)
Cerritos: Jhovany
Hernandez (2 saves)
Records:
Palomar:
11-7-2 - Seeded #14
Cerritos:
18-2-2 - Seeded #3
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