Pirates top Pierce, 2-1; showdown with Santiago Canyon awaits
WOODLAND HILLS -- The Orange Coast College women's soccer team opened the Southern California Regional Playoffs on a winning note Saturday, courtesy of a 2-1 win over host L.A. Pierce.
OCC (18-3), seeded No. 9 in this year's Southern California Regional, started strong against the No. 8 Brahmas (12-5-4) but some early playoff jitters helped keep the game scoreless in the first half of play. "It could have been nerves ... we just made some ball-handling mistakes that we normally didn't do," OCC head coach Kevin Smith said. "Once the second half started, however, it looked like we were back playing the way we've been playing all year."
With the mistakes cleaned up, the Pirates came out as the aggressor in the second half. After a missed opportunity in the opening minute, Sara Gomez ripped a shot that was deflected to teammate Sarah MacArthur and the sophomore forward made no mistakes, finding the back of the net in the 47th minute to put OCC on top, 1-0.
Just five minutes later, Gomez again used her speed and agility to slice through the Brahmas' defense and slipped a shot past the L.A. Pierce goalkeeper to make it 2-0.
In the 65th minute, OCC was called for a penalty inside the scoring box, giving Pierce a penalty kick, which the Brahmas took advantage of to make it a 2-1 score.
From there, however, the Pirates clamped down and, with the exception of a couple of corner kicks late in the match, did not allow any further threatening scoring chances the rest of the way.
Sophomore goalkeeper Kate O'Banion notched four saves to pick up the win for OCC.
Up next for the Pirates is a showdown with top-seeded Santiago Canyon on Tuesday at 2 p.m. at SCC. The 2012 Orange Empire Conference champions and the state's top-ranked team, defeated Santa Monica College, 4-0, in their playoff opener.
The Hawks defeated OCC twice this year and knocked the Pirates out of the playoffs last year in the state quarterfinals.
"It's going to be a tough matchup, no doubt about it, but we played at their place earlier this year (a 3-1 loss on Oct. 16) and managed to stay with them for quite a bit. We had opportunities to score and just didn't finish, which is what you have to do against a strong team like that. Hopefully, with the experience of playing against them twice and one playoff win now under our belts, we can play our best game of the season against them."
