Story and photo by Cristian Sandoval
CHRONICLE STAFF
Cypress College men’s soccer team suffered their first loss of the season to Long Beach City College with a result of 1-0.
With this loss, the Chargers place in third place in the Orange Empire Conference to a record of 2-1.
Cypress started out the game strong and aggressive and pressure the Vikings in their own territory.
The Chargers managed to get the first shot of the game coming from sophomore midfielder Nomar Ibarra at the first minute mark.
During the first half the Cypress managed to get six shots, meanwhile Long Beach only got two. The rest of the first half became very competitive and tough matchup in the midfield, with both teams going into the halftime tied 0-0.
“That’s a good team, they were a good and I thought the first 15 minutes we played well, we got ourselves some chances… they have some experienced players that gave us some problems in the middle of the field… so I would say the first half was balance back and forth,” said Cypress Head Coach Cristian Rus.
For the beginning of the second half, the Chargers started out the same as the first half by pressing the Vikings defense, but things quickly change, as the Vikings opened up the score thanks to a volley inside the box by sophomore midfielder Miguel Arroyo in the 48th minute of the game.
From there, the Chargers went on the offensive and quickly made their presence felt, with two consecutive headers shots from inside the box from freshmen midfielder Sam Mai and freshmen defender Kyle O’Brien.
Cypress were close to tying the game in the 57th minute of the game after another inside the box header from freshmen forward Daniel Klebau, after an extraordinary save between his legs by the Vikings sophomore goalkeeper Oliver Juarez.
The chargers kept creating chances, they managed to get 4 shots attempts in ten minutes from the 70th minute mark to the 80th minute mark. The Chargers biggest chance came in the 78th minute, when O’Brien header shot in front of the goal was blocked by his own teammate.
The chargers managed to get once last chance in the 85th minute of the game, as the Chargers were awarded a free kick from around the 25 yard line, and Ibarra managed to get his shot passed the wall, only to have it blocked by Juarez.
The Vikings were able to close out the game and handing the Chargers their first loss of the season and coach Rus hopes to bounce back and get back on track.
“It’s a tough loss…We are one team…It’s not about me, it’s not about them, it’s about the cypress team and we got to work together and just hey we move on, we can’t look back… Yeah it hurts, you learn from it, and improve individually and as a team and look forward for next week when we play Southwest and so hopefully, we will be ready for that,” said Rus.
Next Up: The chargers will play Southwestern on Friday, Sept. 10, at 3 p.m.
