Pirates earn HUGE win over Santa Ana

COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College men's soccer team took a giant step towards its first Orange Empire Conference title in 22 years with a hard-fought 2-1 win over visiting Santa Ana on Friday at the OCC Soccer Complex.

With the win, the first-place Pirates (10-4-2, 9-2-1 in the OEC) stretched their lead over the Dons (12-4-3, 7-2-3) to four points with just two matches remaining. Despite the impressive win, assistant coach Glenn Strachan knows there is still plenty of work that needs to be done before the finish line approaches. Coast is looking for its first Orange Empire Conference title since 1991.

"Today was a great win, but we still have two very important matches left to play at two difficult places to play," Strachan said. "We played awesome today and got a great result, but we need to keep this going for two more matches."

Both teams played to a scoreless draw in the first half, with the Pirates carrying a slight edge in decent scoring chances. However, in the 43rd minute, the Dons nearly jumped out in front with a free-kick opportunity, but the shot rang off of the cross-bar, keeping the match scoreless heading into halftime.

Coast went on the offensive early in the second half and after a couple of missed opportunities, the Pirates grabbed hold of that all-important first goal. In the 56th minute, Coast ripped a shot on goal, that was saved by Dons' netminder Luis Trujillo (eight saves). Tyler Rios tried to chip in the rebound, but Trujillo again knocked the ball away, but OCC midfielder Thales Serra picked up the loose change and buried his shot into the back of the net, putting Coast up 1-0.

Just 10 minutes later, the Pirates struck again when Brice Manning sent in a long pass, bicycle-kick style, right to a streaking Serra, who used his speed to get past the defense and managed to beat Trujillo with a shot into the upper-left corner of the net, putting Coast up, 2-0.

"Against a team that is very aggressive offensively like Santa Ana, it was important for us to keep our offense moving forward and put them on their heels," Strachan said. "Fortunately, we were able to do that today."

Despite outshooting the Dons 6-0 in the first 20 minutes of action, Coast knew the Dons would be bringing the entire squad in to try and get back into the match and that's exactly what happened.

In the 70th minute, a Dons cross-pass banked off a Pirates' defender and the ball slipped past goalkeeper Nathan Brown (four saves) for a goal, cutting the lead to 2-1.

Brown managed to keep the Dons off of the scoreboard the rest of the way, with a lot of help from the OCC defense, led by the trio of Josh Madrid, Blake Mooney and Connor Theate. "Our entire back line did a tremendous job for us today against a dangerous team," Strachan said. 

The Pirates will return to action on Tuesday at Fullerton College, beginning at 3 p.m.