Following the loss of a game against Cerritos College, the men’s soccer team lost two more players to red cards and ended losing 3-2 to Compton College.
With its overall record of 4-4-3 and 2-2-2 in conference, the Warriors will be traveling to play against Mt. SAC tomorrow and host Long Beach City at 4 p.m. on Tuesday.
Although Mt SAC is defending champion, assistant coach Eddie Barragan believes the game will be close and even.
“There is no team that is dominating our conference,” Barragan said.
The Warriors beat Long Beach City on Sept. 24, in a game they started off losing in the first half but attacked aggressively in the second half to get the win.
“I expect the same performance from our team and get another victory,” Barragan said.
In Tuesday’s game againstCompton, some of the referee’s decision influenced the game.
The first goal for EC came from defender Saul Gonzalez, hitting a rebounded ball from a free kick into the net in the first half. However, when defender Nick Conte got a red card, attacking an enemy from behind, the team gave Compton a penalty kick chance and yielded them a lead 2-1.
“The referee called everything against us,” Gonzalez said.
As well as losing one more player, midfielder Salvador Zelaya, to red card in the second half, the Warriors gave up another controversial goal, 3-1.
“Defender Kent Hayashi was attacked, but the referee didn’t call a foul,” Gonzalez said. “They kept playing and scored a goal.”
Although the team suffered from the referee’s judging, it played fairly until a whistle blew.
“We played harder because we knew that everyone had to pick up the pace for players that we were missing,” Gonzalez said.
While the team was playing harder with nine field players, the second goal came from forward Jerry Anderson, kicking a rebounded ball from a corner kick into the net, but the third one never came.
“We had chances to tie the game, but unfortunately we didn’t,” Barragan said.
“If you look at the score, you think that we lost. But, we dominated the game,” Gonzalez said. “They didn’t beat us in the field.”
“Our teamwork mistakes gave them goals,” Hayashi said. “Even though the referee was against us, it’s not good that we lost the game that we could have won.”
In a fast-paced game against Cerritos College last Friday, the Warriors were not prepared to play and lost 3-0.
Barragan said he noticed that players were flat and tired when warming up before the game.
“You kind of notice if a team is warm enough or not and how a team is going to perform before a game starts,” Barragan said. “From the start of the game, players looked dead. We’d never recovered from that in the game.”
“We were not motivated and were not ready mentally,” Gonzalez said. “Our team mistakes that we could have avoided cost us the game.”
Although goalkeeper Hamzah Al-Rawi gave up three goals to Cerritos, he played consistently throughout the game while his teammates were fatigued.
“He had a lot of good saves. It would have been worse without his effort,” Barragan said.
“A team performance was really bad overall,” Barragan said. “If that happens again, we have to make change. A good team will bounce back from a bad game.”
