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On the strength of
a pair of regulation wins and another by penalty
kicks, the Cerritos College men's soccer team won
the Hartnell Tournament, which includes some of the
best teams from Northern California. The Falcons
(4-0-1) opened with a convincing 6-0 win over
American River College and followed that with a
come-from-behind 2-2 result against Hartnell that
Cerritos won on penalty kicks, 4-2. That sent them
to the championship game, where they handed Fresno
City College a 3-1 defeat after falling behind
early. The team will now play their home opener on
Friday at 4:00 p.m. against Golden West College.
"I thought it was
a great tournament for us," said head coach
Benny
Artiaga. "We saw a lot of good things,
like the play of (tournament MVP)
Fabian
Perez (Bellflower HS) and
Juan Mejia (Paramount HS).
Also
Alexis
Burguete (Bell HS) did some
very good things, along with (freshman) Ruben
Gonzalez (Artesia HS), who was
playing in his first match."
In the finals, the
Rams took a 1-0 lead in the 13th minute, but the
Falcons came back right before halftime to tie the
game when sophomore midfielder
Andrew
Robles (St. John Bosco HS)
sent a corner kick to freshman midfielder
Eddie
Valencia (Los Angeles Wilson HS),
who scored on the touch.
Riding the
momentum of the late first-half goal, Cerritos took
control of the match in the second half and scored
in the 57th minute when Gonzalez took a pass from
sophomore midfielder
Timmy Seo
(Los Alamitos HS) and made a great move
past the final player for a goal. The Falcons looked
to up their lead in the 75th minute when Valencia
was awarded a penalty kick, but missed. However, two
minutes later, sophomore forward
Luis
Gonzalez (Long Beach Millikan HS)
was awarded a penalty kick and he did not miss.
Freshman goalkeeper
Danny
Lizama (Duarte HS) made five
saves to secure the championship.
Cerritos wouldn't
have made it to the finals had it not been for the
stellar play of freshman goalkeeper
Tony
Iniquez (Animo HS), who made a
key save in the penalty kicks to earn the win over
Hartnell. After the end of regulation and the score
tied, Gonzalez was given the first crack in the
penalty kicks. He missed his attempt, but it was
ruled that the Hartnell goalkeeper moved forward too
early. Gonzalez drilled his second chance for a
goal, while Iniquez came up with a huge save on the
first attempt by the Panthers.
The save was
enough momentum for the Falcons, who saw sophomore
Rene
Hernandez (Warren HS),
Burguete and freshman
German
Rivas (Monrovia HS) all score,
while Iniquez also made a second save.
It didn't look as
though Cerritos would even make it to the finals
after Hartnell scored in the third and 32nd minute
for a 2-0 lead. But Artiaga was in mid-season form
and explained to the players that the way they
played in the second half would show themselves what
they are made of and it would test their character.
The team responded
to his words and in the 69th minute when freshman
Caesar Castillo (Eagle Valley, CO
HS) took on a player and made a long switch to
Burguete, who rifled a shot past the Hartnell
goalkeeper. It took just nine more minutes to tie
the score when Rivas took on two players and played
the ball to Mejia who drilled a shot into the back
of the net.
There was no doubt
in the first game of the tournament, as Gonzalez and
Mejia each scored a pair of goals, while Castillo
and Burguete each added another. The Falcons opened
a 4-0 lead in the first half and never looked back,
as they scored six goals in a game for the second
time on the year.
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