The Cerritos College men's soccer team has been seeded #4 for the Southern California Regional Playoffs and will host #13-seeded Long Beach City College in the first round. The first round game will take place at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, with the winner advancing to face either #5-seeded Santiago Canyon College or #12-seeded El Camino College next Tuesday. Tickets for the game will be $10 for General Admission and $7 for all identified students, staff, faculty, senior citizens age 60 and older and children under 12 years of age.
The Falcons (12-5-4) finished in second place in the South Coast Conference, while the cross-town rival Vikings (7-6-8) finished in sixth place. Of the eight SCC teams, six of them were selected as part of the 14-team field.
This will mark the third meeting of the year between the two teams, with Cerritos winning the first meeting, 2-1, while the second game was a 1-1 draw. In the first affair. LBCC took an early 1-0 lead on a goal by Erik Carbajal, but sophomore Thiago Lusardi (Centro Educational Ramos, Brazil HS) tied the game before the end of the first half. With the Vikings playing a man down due to a red card, freshman Edwin Corona (Cathedral HS) scored the eventual game-winner with 26 minutes left, while freshman Edward Robles (Annenberg HS) assisted on both goals.
In the second contest, which took place on November 8, Lusardi broke a scoreless tie in the 75th minute, but Long Beach City needed only :49 seconds to tie the game on an Alex Martinez goal on a throw-in. On the Falcon goal, Robles also posted the assist. Sophomore Benito Gonzalez (Long Beach Wilson HS) was in goal for the first game, with freshman Thomas Yeandle (Orange Lutheran HS) handling the goalkeeping duties in the second meeting.
