The Cerritos College men's soccer team played three games at the Hartnell Tournament and concluded each game with every result possible. The Falcons (2-1-1) opened with a 2-0 loss at the hands of San Francisco City College, then rebounded with a 7-0 win over Allan Hancock College and concluded the tournament with a 2-2 draw against Irvine Valley College. The game against the Lasers went to penalty kicks, where IVC won, but the official result is a tie. Cerritos will now host Oxnard College in a 4:00 p.m. non-conference game on Tuesday.

After out-shooting the Rams in their shuout loss, the Falcons came out determined to get on the board early, as sophomore Thiago Lusardi (Centro Educational Ramos HS, Brazil) took matters into his own hands and scored a natural hat trick 13 minutes into the game. He scored his first goal five minutes into the game and then made it a 2-0 lead two minutes later. Lusardi's third game came in the 13th minute and Cerritos was well on their way to a lopsided win.

They scored four more goals in the second half, with four different players finding the back of the net, with sophomore Gustavo Reyes (Long Beach Millikan HS) accounting for a goal and assist. Also scoring for the Falcons were freshmen Jesus Maciel (Coranado, NV HS), Christian Hernandez (John Glenn HS) and Alejandro Nunez (Kennedy, Granada Hills HS).

Freshman goalkeeper Thomas Yeandle (Orange Lutheran HS) played all three games and earned the shutout against the Bulldogs. He rebounded after a slow start against Irvine Valley after allowing a pair of goals in the first 15 minutes and finished by shutting them down the final 75 minutes to extend the game to penalty kicks.

Trailing 2-0, Cerritos went on to dominate the remainder of the game, as they out-shot Irvine Valley, 24-6 in the game and 18-1 in the second half. But it wasn't until the 70th minute that the Falcons would get on the board, as Lusardi scored off a wall pass from freshman Juan Carlos Regaldo (Clark, NV HS). Less than 10 minutes later, the game was tied when freshman Edwin Corona (Cathedral HS) scored on a great strike on a pass from Maciel.

Photo by Daryl Peterson