Playing an intense 90-minute match against visiting Los Angeles City College on Tuesday, the Cerritos College men's soccer team pulled out a 1-0 victory. The win secures the #2-seed in the South Coast Conference Tournament for the Falcons (12-2-4, 6-0-3), who will receive a first round bye. The team won't be back in action until next Tuesday when they host a team still to be determined. The win also extended the team's unbeaten streak to 15 games (11-0-4).

In the first half, the Cubs (10-6-4, 4-4-1) tested freshman goalkeeper Griffin Welch (Long Beach Poly HS), who came up with a pair of stellar saves. By contrast, the Falcons matched the shots on goal, but none were as dangerous as the ones by LA City.

However, Cerritos was able to finally push through and scored the lone goal in the 58th minute of the game. Setting up a corner kick, freshman Jonathan Vivar (Glendora HS/Mt. San Antonio College) decided to pass the ball to sophomore Pedro Reyes (Connections Academy HS/Cal State Fullerton). Making a quick decision to send the ball into the box, sophomore Jose Lopez (MY Academy HS) was able to head in a beautiful shot past goalkeeper Carlos Rodriguez. It was his team-leading 13th goal of the season for Lopez.

The Falcons were strong defensively, as did tilt the field in their favor after the goal was scored. They made some superlative plays that allowed them to get off several great shots, with most of them coming from Lopez and freshman Allan Gonzalez (Lakewood HS). However, Rodriguez was able to record six of his nine saves in the second half.

Welch improved to 12-2-3 in net for Ceritos with his nine shutout of the season and lowered his goals against average to 0.77.

Photos by Daryl Peterson