A tremendous 17-0 win was taken over ECC Compton Center by the Cerritos college women’s soccer team Tuesday, Oct. 29 on the home field. The players cornered the opposition to not only their half of the field, but forced them to play close quarters defense in their 18 yard box.
Compton’s main staff has been decimated by a large amount of injuries and suspensions in the course of its season. When faced against the Falcons, Compton was down to ten players and throughout the game lost a player to an injury, thus reducing the team to nine able bodied players.
The goals were overflowing into the Compton net and no forgiveness was shown as the Falcons cracked shots at the net regardless of the emergency situation the other team faced.
Sophomore center attacking midfielder April Juarez was bountiful in her goals. She scored a total of five and assisted in many others. “It was really cool,” Juarez explained how she enjoyed working with the team. “It’s just nice knowing that the team is going to finish the passes.”
As ruthless as she might have played on the field scoring so many times, Juarez felt ‘quite sorry’ for the opposing team. “That was tough, for the get-go I saw ten players and then they lost another one and were already winning five zero,” Juarez said. “I kind of didn’t want to score anymore so I thought we should just play.”
The team felt some kindness and decided to play the passing game and reduce its ambition to score.
Sophomore striker Jennifer Torres was also an avid contributor to the goal count. Darting threw the noble Compton lines and supplied heavily by her teammate Juarez, Torres scored many goals that rallied the team to continue the assault on the opposing net.
“We went through little setbacks in the last games,” Torres said. “For us to realize that we need to step it up.” Torres said that the team communicated across the ranks of the team very well and put professional energy into the match.
“We just pumped each other up,” Torres said. “Everytime we made a mistake or when the plays didn’t work out, we motivated each other to try better and well the plays came out right on the ones that we did.” The Falcons did not let up and pounced on every available chance it had to score.
Head coach Ruben Gonzalez was aware of Compton’s dire situation. “Our opponent was struggling a little,” Gonzalez said. “They had some injuries, and they came in here without a full squad, so we were able to take advantage of that.”
“The opportunities came early to us,” Gonzalez said. “Around the 33 minute we made some substitutions and we basically put everyone in an opportunity to play.”
With the 11-0 advantage throughout the first 45, the team’s manager was able to give even the least played athlete enough game time to give them experience.
“You have to give Compton credit,” Gonzalez said. “(It) never gave up.”
Compton’s camp kept its heads high despite the tremendous loss and continued to give Cerritos College a game.
With the team having an overall game summary of 14 won, zero tied, and one loss, the team will stride to keep the momentum going and fix and tweak the small problems internally to give it all on the pitch.
