On Friday, the Cerritos College men's soccer team used their ability to maintain possession of the ball to guide them to a 1-0 South Coast Conference home win over Pasadena City College. The victory by the Falcons enabled them to remain in first place with a 6-0-0 record, while they improved to 10-2-1 in the season. As for the Lancers, they dropped to 4-4-5 and 3-2-1 in conference action. Cerritos will now travel to take on rival Mt. San Antonio College in a 5:00 p.m. match next Tuesday. The Mounties were defeated by PCC, 5-2 earlier in the week.

In a very physical game that saw seven yellow cards called, Cerritos frustrated the Lancers with their ability to push the ball up the field on their maximum-sized field. Pasadena City's home field is much smaller and they had trouble containing the outside speed of the Falcons and their precision passing.

After the teams played to a scoreless first half, Cerritos was able to get on the board in what turned out to be the lone goal of the game. After securing possession of the ball at midfield, freshman Felix Avila (Huntington Park HS) sent in a ball that was collected by freshman Edwin Corona (Cathedral HS). The goal was scored when Corona was able to one-time the shot over the head of Lancer goalkeeper Gaetano Perez, who made five saves on the day.

The game was not without its scoring chances, as sophomore Thiago Lusardi (Centro Educational Ramos, Brazil HS) saw his point blank shot stopped by Perez. On the other side of the field, Falcon freshman Thomas Yeandle (Orange Lutheran HS) came up with a big save on a shot from Zack Larson in the first half. Aside from the high-percentage shot, Lusardi, who has 12 goals on the season, was held in check. Causing quite a bit of havoc for Pasadena City was freshman Edward Robles (Annenberg HS), as was sophomore Yoni Garcia (University HS).

Photos by Daryl Peterson