The Cerritos College Falcons were defeated by The Long Beach City College Vikings in the finals of the Southern California Regional tournament.
The Falcons who had won their last two home playoffs, headed on the road to face a very familiar Vikings squad.
The winner of the Southern California Regional Final head’s to the State Championship in Sacramento to play for an opportunity at the National Championship.
The environment in the stands was hostile, Vikings fans were chanting , blowing horns and at a point the fans were on the touchline of the field yelling to players.
On the field, the Falcons were on the attack, pressuring quickly while the Vikings passed back to the goalkeeper Abraham Ramirez and slowed down to play the long ball to catch the Falcons on the counter.
In the 20th min Edgar Ausencio came down the wing before playing a cross into the box. Keeper Abraham Ramirez jumped to claim the cross, Willam Blanco collided with him and the ball came out. Sophomore Donovan Perez pounced on the rebound and scored to make it 1-0.
After the goal, the Falcons were looking for more taking the game to the Vikings. Perez kept creating chances and putting good efforts on goal.
With five minutes left before half time, the Viking were pushing for the tying goal. Ulises Grado passed to Jose Mariscal and beat Griffin Welch‘s glove on the right side to level it 1-1 going into half time.
In the 24 min of the second half, Grado kicked a long ball to Mariscal. He beat one Falcons defender and blasted it by Welch on the top left corner of the net to make it 2-1.
Cesar Solarzano Garcia had a corner and played the ball into the box which found Perez. His effort clattered off the crossbar before being cleared hastily by the Long Beach defense.
With 10 min to go, the Falcons were pressing. Allan Gonzalez came in and side tackled Edwin Rodriguez for the ball, but the Ref call it a foul. Gonzalez‘s foul proved to be disastrous as the Ref give him a red card putting the Falcons down to 10 man.
Aritaga said, “Of course it cost us, right? It keeps you a man down when we were right on top of them. And the bullshit is that he called it on with two tackles where the kid clearly won the ball. So if the referee got his agenda, whatever, what he wanted, it’s hard to play against the referee, too.”
Down a man the Falcons tried to create some offense but the Vikings come wave after wave on Welch looking for that clenching goal.
In added time Mariscal come in on Welch one on one. He juked Welch on the right side to make it 3-1 to complete his hat trick and seal the game.
Mariscal on going to State, said, “It feels great. I’m one of the team captains. It’s a great feeling because all my family was here. Overall, I can’t ask for more.”
Head Coach Benny Artiaga said, “The game plan was perfect, bro. We had them. We were the better team. We had them. We outplayed them. We had the more clear chances. It’s hard to win when you got the referee one against you, and two, when you yourself don’t put away your chances, man.”
Artiaga on his team for this season said, “I’m super proud of them, man. Super proud. Our boys played well. We had to finish the season on a high note, and, you know, Cerritos will keep going, man.”
