In a dominant victory, the women’s soccer team made a strong statement in its home game by shutting out Los Angeles Harbor College 9 – 0 Tuesday, Oct. 1.
The Falcons struggled early on in the first half of Tuesday’s game against Los Angeles Harbor College.
While the team managed to constantly drive in to the opposing team’s side of the pitch, it was not able to capitalize when it had the ball.
“I think we started off slow. We were trying to force certain things and we weren’t being patient,” head coach Ruben Gonzalez said. “Once we started playing and being patient we started to do what we wanted to do.
“(We wanted) to move the ball and try to find the space and create as many goal opportunities as possible. We were able to put a lot of them away today.”
Los Angeles Harbor College pushed the women to keep the ball and kept them from scoring until a goal from freshman forward and infielder Nayeli Requejo turned the tide toward Cerritos College’s favor.
Cerritos College ended the first half with two more goals from sophomore forward and midfielder Claudia Lopez, who managed to score three goals throughout the entire game.
“I actually did pretty (well),” Lopez said. “I thought I started off bad (in) the first half.”
Once the second half started the women’s team controlled the rest of the game, adding six more goals to the final score.
“I just think we came out nervous and we couldn’t finish. Then we got rhythm of the game and started gaining confidence in ourselves,” freshman forward Carolina Ornelas said.
While Los Angeles Harbor College continued to fight to comeback, it was unable to overcome the improved strategy and teamwork of the Cerritos College team.
“I think we started we started playing with the confidence we should have been playing (with) from the beginning,” Gonzalez said. “(Once) they started having fun, things just started falling into place.”
Communication was said to be one of the main reasons the women were able to shift gears in the second half.
“I think everyone was working (together) more. We got a talk from the coaches and (they said) ‘step it up.’ Just because we’re winning doesn’t mean slow down your game, so I think it was that.”
The women will play again on Oct. 4 against El Camino Compton-Center in a home contest at 2 p.m.
