Second Half Goal Enough to Upset Falcons

At the start of the 2011 season, the Cerritos College men's soccer team had high hopes of doing well and making a run at their third state championship in school history. After the Falcons finished second in the South Coast Conference, and held the #3 ranking in the country, they embarked on the post-season as the #2 seeded team in the Southern California Regional Playoffs. A first round bye meant the team would have 12 days off between games, which appeared to show itself, as the Falcons were upset by #7-seeded Golden West, 1-0 on Tuesday. Cerritos wasn't shorted on chances to score, but came up short every time they pressured the Rustler (13-5-4) defense. Golden West will now advance to the third round, where they will face the winner of the game between #3-seeded Santa Barbara City College and #6-seeded Rio Hondo College.

"Honestly, we didn't come out with a lot of energy today," said a disheartened head coach Benny Artiaga. "It just comes down to having so much youth on the team and their inability to maintain the flow of a game from start to finish. I think some of the guys came in already looking at the state championships and failed to realize that we had several tough games in front of us before we reached that point."

After pressuring for the game's first goal, the Cerritos defense was unable to get back on the transition and Golden West was able to string together several passes that led to Jesus Garcia crossing a pass to David Perez, who scored past sophomore goalkeeper Danny Lizama (Duarte HS) in the 58th minute. The goal would hold up, despite the Falcons turning up the heat and missing several chances.

Early in the game, freshman midfielder Daniel Garcia (Artesia HS) was turned away when his line drive went off the crossbar, while Garcia also missed on scoring off a header on a beautifully placed crossing pass from freshman forward Angel Ayala (Cabrillo HS) in the 20th minute. Then, right before halftime, freshman midfielder Dominique Escobar (Roosevelt HS) and Ayala was stopped by Golden West goalkeeper Christian Cucue, who made eight saves on the day.

With the game winding down, Artiaga moved up sophomore defender Alejandro Covarrubias (Bell HS) to be an extra attacker, but scraped the idea several minutes later when the Rustlers were able to transition and came close to adding to their lead. Lizama, who stoned both Jose De La Cruz (60th minute) and Jim Amador (74th minute), recorded seven saves in the game.

But Artiaga, who relied on his team's youth to lead the state in scoring during the regular season, surmised that their tense approach to the game limited them in their ability to come away with the win. "When it's a do-or-die game and you don't leave everything you have out on the field, you tend to not do well. But today was the story of our season, in that it took us about 30 minutes to get things going, and when you miss out on your scoring chances, not a lot of good things come out of it. We had a good regular season, but the season isn't over at that point. It's just beginning."

Scoring 1st 2nd F

Golden West 0 1 1
Cerritos 0 0 0

Goals:
Golden West: Jesus Garcia (58th minute; David Perez assist).
Cerritos: None

Shots on Goal:
Golden West: 10 Shots on Goal
Cerritos: 15 Shots on Goal

Keeper Saves:
Golden West: Christian Cucue – 8 Saves
Cerritos: Danny Lizama – 7 Saves

Records:
Golden West: 13-5-4 – Seeded #7
Cerritos: 17-3-2 – Seeded #2