Coast settles for 2-2 tie with Fullerton

COSTA MESA -- The up-and-down season continues for the Orange Coast College men's soccer team as the Pirates settled for a 2-2 tie against visiting Fullerton on Friday at the OCC Soccer Complex.

Fresh off of a 4-2 win at rival Santa Ana on Tuesday, the Pirates watched an early two-goal lead evaporate as the Hornets overcame the early deficit to force a stalemate.

It's been that type of season for the Pirates (7-3-2 overall, 3-2-1 OEC). After starting 0-2-1 (one turned into a forfeit win for OCC), Coast regrouped and ripped off four convincing wins in a row. Then, OCC stumbled with a bad road loss to Riverside before coming back with two wins out of its last three matches before today's tie.

It looked like the momentum from Tuesday's big carried over into Friday as the Pirates came out red-hot early on. In the 14th minute, Brandon Bauman slipped a touch pass to Jorge Sanchez and the freshman fought off a defender and beat Hornets' goalkeeper Alejandro Mora with a low-left shot, putting OCC up 1-0.

Seventeen minutes later, Coast made it 2-0 when Bauman fed teammate Dong-Gi Shin, who beat a charging Mora with a touch-shot into the net.

Coast had several early opportunities to add to its lead, but failed to do so.

After the second goal, the Pirates took their foot off of the gas and the Hornets capitalized.

After outshooting Fullerton 5-0 in the first 30 minutes, the Hornets closed out the first half with seven shots and found the back of the net in the 45th minute off of a header by Jorge Salas (assisted by Juan Rangel.

Fullerton (3-4-4, 2-2-2) continued its strong play in the second half, but the score remained 2-1 until the 85th minute. Rangel took the ball up the middle of the field past three OCC defenders and fed a pass to Christian Martinez, who ripped a shot into the upper-right corner, tying the match up.

The Pirates will return to the OCC Soccer Complex on Tuesday against Cypress, beginning at 3 p.m.