Just one week removed from seeing their 40-match unbeaten streak come to an end, the Cerritos College men's soccer team saw themselves face-to-face with the same team in the first round of the South Coast Conference Tournament. Seeded #2 for the first-ever tournament, the Falcons (14-1-4, 5-1-3) played #7-seeded Pasadena City College (8-8-4, 2-4-3) to a 1-1 tie at the end of regulation. The teams immediately went to penalty kicks, the Cerritos prevailing, 5-4. That advances the team to the semifinals next Tuesday at 3:00 p.m., where they will host #3-seeded El Camino. In their only other meeting this season, the Falcons posted a 4-1 win over the Warriors, which is still their only loss of the year.

The Lancers struck first in the game when Mario Urbina attacked a rolling ball toward the Cerritos goal and scored past freshman goalkeeper Luis Enciso (Gahr HS), who was out of position on the play due to his hesitation. But it only took the Falcons a little over five minutes to knot the score when sophomore Kevin Diaz (Connections Academy HS) converted on a penalty kick after Pasadena City's Jared Hernandez was called for a hand ball in the 18-yard box.

As the game reached penalty kicks, Cerritos was required to shoot first, with sophomore Bryan Ortega (Paramount HS) scoring into the lower right corner past PCC goalkeeper Steven Sandoval. On the Lancers first attempt, Enciso redeemed himself as he stoned Andres Velasquez by correctly diving to his right and saved the ground-level shot. Everyone else was able to convert their penalty kicks, with freshman Joel Martinez (Southeast HS) clinching the win with the team's fifth conversion. In fact, Encisco dove the correct way on every Lancer attempt, but made one save, which would turn out to be enough to advance Cerritos.

Several great saves by Sandoval kept the game from getting out of hand for the Falcons, as he made a leaping save on a header by Diaz in the 15th minute and also denied freshman Armando Ibarra, Jr. (Downey HS) in the 69th minute on a nice misdirected shot.

The Falcons played the game without two of the defensive starters, as Ernie Cueva (Bassett HS) and Eugene Martinez (Delille Academy, Belize) each collected their fifth yellow cards of the season in the last regular season contest, which comes with a one-game suspension. Moving forward against El Camino, Cerritos will be without freshman defender Victor Trujillo (Fremont HS), who received a red-card in the 90th minute when he tackled a Lancer player going in for a breakaway. Pasadena took a direct kick from 22 yards out, with Velazquez shot going over the net.

Photos by Daryl Peterson