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After playing
a scoreless first half, the Cerritos College men's
soccer team scored three times in the second half to
post a 3-0 South Coast Conference victory at Long
Beach City College on Friday afternoon. The win
improved the Falcons record to 9-1-1 overall and
3-1-1 in conference play. The team will now host Los
Angeles Harbor College at 2:00 p.m. next Tuesday.
The Falcons broke
the scoreless tie in the 56th minute when sophomore
Luis Gonzalez (Long Beach Millikan
HS) was pulled down in the box for a penalty
kick. He scored his team-leading 15th goal to give
Cerritos a lead they would not relinquish. On the
play that drew the penalty kick, Gonzalez was
double-teamed, but worked his way past both before
getting pulled down from behind.
"After playing a
tough first half where I thought we controlled the
tempo, I told the team they needed to remain patient
and the chances would come," said head coach
Benny
Artiaga. "It was the first time in a
while that we were scoreless in a game at halftime,
so I felt that as long as we didn't get frustrated
and continued to play our game, the chances would
keep coming."
The other two
goals came from the tandem of sophomore
Salvador Melendrez (Long Beach
Millikan HS) scoring off passes from freshman
German Rivas (Monrovia HS).
Cerritos took a 2-0 lead in the 68th minute on one a
textbook touch-passing clinic where the Falcons
passed the ball five times before scoring. The play
started with sophomore defender
Fabian
Perez (Bellflower HS) pushing
the ball up the field after receiving a clearing
pass and sent the ball to Gonzalez, who quickly sent
the ball to Rivas. Without missing a beat, Rivas
passed to Melendrez and he scored on a header.
The Falcons picked
up their insurance goal in the 82nd minute when the
team countered a Viking scoring attack and used
their speed get the ball into scoring position
quickly. Rivas then found Melendrez streaking past
the Long Beach defense and scored his fourth goal of
the year.
Cerritos clamped
down on defense and limited Long Beach City to just
four shots with freshman goalkeeper
Danny Lizama (Duarte HS)
posting two saves for his third shutout of the year.
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