Pirates hang on to top Santa Ana, 2-1

COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College rode a pair of first-half goals all the way to the finish line as the Pirates pulled out a hard-fought 2-1 Orange Empire Conference win over rival Santa Ana on Tuesday at the OCC Soccer Complex.

The Pirates (7-9-1, 6-5-0 in conference) and the Dons (7-7-4, 6-3-2) staged yet another hard-fought, intense battle for 90 full minutes and in the end, Coast fought off wave after wave of Santa Ana scoring chances to prevail.

Coast had the wind advantage and carried play for most of the first half. In the 13th minute, sophomore Gaku Kawarai made a nice move to slip past a Dons' player before slipping a nice feed to teammate Tommy Casarrubias, who ripped a perfect shot under the right post and crossbar to put the Pirates up, 1-0.

It stayed that way until the 38th minute, when the Pirate offense -- a side of the ball that has struggled all season long -- finally connected with perfect, tic-tac-toe precision. At the end of it all, Curtis Taniguchi slipped the final pass over to Jack Slavik and the freshman forward copied Casarrubias with a laser into the upper-right corner of the net, putting OCC ahead, 2-0.

It looked to remain that way heading into halftime, but the Dons' offense began to apply pressure late and after back-to-back corner-kick opportunities, an OCC player was called for a hand ball inside the penalty box, giving the Dons a penalty kick opportunity. Jangho Yoon took the PK shot and beat OCC netminder Ryan Brown on the last play before halftime to cut the Pirates' lead down to 2-1.

The Dons, who now had some momentum and a soccer field full of aiding wind, began to take control of the match, but the strong play of the OCC defense -- led by sophomores Ty O'Connor and Taylor Kane, among others -- managed to keep the Dons off of the scoreboard.

Brown finished with three saves for the Pirates, while SAC goalkeeper Cyrus Mohseni stopped four OCC shots. Brown's biggest stop came midway through the second half when he managed to reach up and deflect a Santa Ana scoring chance just over the crossbar.

The Dons had an 11-1 edge in corner kicks for the afternoon, but the Pirates escaped with the win.

OCC will play at Cypress on Friday (3 p.m.) before returning home to play Golden West on Tuesday, also at 3 p.m.