In an imprecise but even match on Saturday, the Pierce College women’s soccer team could not take advantage of playing at home and were eliminated from the playoffs by Cypress College.
Being ranked #6 in Southern California the Brahmas were the strong favorites before the match, but the Chargers had other plans as they crush Pierce’s state championship hopes with a 2-0 victory over them.
“Some defensive mistakes and not stepping up, if you look at our team we just really depended on touching and passing, which is great but you have to play hard, and we didn’t do it, we we’re very soft,” said Pierce’s head coach Adolfo Perez.
The game started with two imprecise teams trying to get possession of the ball before the other one could.
Neither team accomplished it throughout the game as both defenses were forced to kick the ball away from their penalty box when felt threatened.
The Brahmas’ had no connection in midfield between the defense and forwards making it harder to gain full control of the match.
“We didn’t come out playing with the ball from the back, whenever we had the ball we just kicked it up and when the forwards would get it we didn’t have much support,” said forward Edith Dominguez. “We just had to play as if every game is our last and doesn’t matter what place we’re in we just have to keep working harder.”
Cypress midfielder Justine Hauck put the Chargers on the scoreboard eight minutes into the second half with a strong header.
After the initial goal, the Pierce soccer team seemed to be woken up and went to look for the equalizer, but just when they were close to tying it up Cypress’ midfielder Samantha Rice sealed their victory with a 38th minute goal after the Brahmas’s defense failed to clear the ball away from their penalty box.
“The pressure got to us, because it was the playoffs it was big for them [Pierce players], our youth showed up unfortunately, we had a chance to go far this year.” coach Perez said.
The Brahmas’ title hopes ended at the hands of one of the hottest teams in the playoffs.
Cypress has won 11 out of their last 14 games, tying two of them and losing only one, they have only received five goals and have scored a total of 37 of them during that spam.
“It was a good season, they [Pierce] made the playoffs and when you coach, the initial goal is to make the state playoffs because that’s when everyone else has turned in their uniforms and you’re still playing,” said Pierce College Athletic Director Bob Lofrano.
There are some valuable lessons to be learned for the Brahmas looking into their next season according to head coach Perez.
“The experience that nothing is automatic, all these conference championships at times I guess it was easy but now is not as easy as it was,” Perez said.
http://info.piercecollege.edu/departments/athletics/wnsoccer.html
