Controlling the tempo of the game for the first 65 minutes, the Cerritos College men's soccer team withstood a brief East Los Angeles College rally and scored the eventual game-winning goal with 12 minutes left to pull out a 2-1 South Coast Conference home win on Friday. The win by the Falcons (7-2-2, 3-1-0) comes on the heels of the team getting upset by El Camino College on Tuesday. By the way Cerritos maintained control of the ball - and tempo - against the Huskies (3-4-4, 1-3-0), it was surprising that the game came down to a late goal to pull out the victory.

The Falcons attacked East LA goalie Juan Escobar (11 saves) from the outset, and required him to make several acrobatic saves to keep the game scoreless in the first half. By contrast, Cerritos held the ball so much, they only allowed four shots (one on goal) through the first 45 minutes of the game. Physical play also dictated the style of the game, with the Falcons looking to utilize their overall team speed and large playing field, while East LA was content with trying to slow the game down.

The first goal came off a hard free kick by freshman midfielder Mario Guerrero (University HS) than careened off the crossbar. It landed right in front of sophomore Daniel Garcia (Artesia HS), who was a second half starter. In one motion, he received the ball and scored into the unprotected net for his third goal of the season in the 58th minute.

East LA finally got a real chance to get on the board in the 65th minute of the game when Salvador Medrano saw his hard line drive shot barely clear the crossbar. But just a minute later, a lapse in the Cerritos defense led to Daniel Llanos scoring past diving goalkeeper Brett Hughes (Long Beach Wilson HS) after a failed clearing attempt.

The goal seemed to light up the Falcons, as they regained control of the game and scored the game-winning goal in the 78th minute on a pair of nice passes that set up Garcia for his second goal of the game. Freshman Carlos Rosales (Manual Arts HS) maintained the ball just inside the midfield line and threaded a pass into the middle for freshman Jose Rivera (Torrance HS). Not missing a beat, he saw Garcia streaking down the left side, where he faced Escobar all alone and scored with a low line drive kick.