Pirates fit to be tied against Warriors
| Final | 1 | 2 | T | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
El Camino (4-3-4) | 0 | 4 | 4 |
|
Orange Coast (5-5-3) | 3 | 1 | 4 |
COSTA MESA -- A 4-0 lead with less than 15 minutes remaining seemed like the beginning of a solid victory for the Orange Coast College men's soccer team. Instead, visiting El Camino turned up jets and stunned the Pirates en route to a 4-4 tie on Tuesday at the OCC Soccer Complex.
A sluggish opening 25 minutes by the Pirates (5-5-3) was quickly forgotten as Coast ripped off three goals in a nine-minute span. Unfortunately, that same sluggish start reared its ugly head in the second half and the Warriors (4-3-4) made the hosts pay with four goals over the final 14 minutes.
Nicholas Cardenas had two goals and an assist for OCC, while Achref Beldi added a goal and an assist. Bryan Martinez tallied OCC's other goal, while Jun Kwon notched a pair of assists.
Cardenas' second tally of the game came in the 68th minute and it put OCC up 4-0, but eight minutes later, El Camino picked up some life when a free kick was banked into the goal off the foot of Kevin Negrete to make it 4-1.
From there El Camino controlled play. Five minutes later, Negrete found a streaking Jean-Pierre Dejean Macksa for a goal to make it 4-2.
In the 86th minute a long feed found a wide-open Negrete, who buried the shot into the back of the net to make it 4-3.
Finally, in the 88th minute, Oliver Diaz found the hot foot of Negrete, who capped off his three-goal performance with the match-tying tally.
ECC outshot the Pirates 10-3 in the second half. Backup goalkeeper Brandon Cardenas notched a save in 45 minutes of action, while OCC's Thiago Lina Da Costa had eight saves for the match.
Coast returns to action on Friday at home against Santiago Canyon, beginning at 3 p.m.
