Corsairs Men's Soccer Dominates El Camino 5-1
The crowd was focused on the first day of September, and the energy shown by the Corsairs men's soccer team was electric. Before the game started, the home team was heard saying "let's go, it's game time, come on!” They were ready to beat El Camino College, badly.
Santa Monica College’s men's soccer team is a close knit group who loves playing together, and that unity was on display for the whole entire game. They are led by a fiery competitor and head coach, Tim Pierce. Pierce was constantly on his team but kept it very positive, he would constantly say “Stay positive.” and “Do not play casual.”
His team heard him loud and clear, right off the bat the Corsairs Sophomore Kevin Martinez scored the team's first goal by gathering in a perfectly placed pass and shot the ball in the top right corner, this gave Santa Monica a one-goal lead. Not long after Martinez’s goal, the Corsairs put the ball in the net once again. Yoel Cohavy made a gorgeous pass to Andy Naidu and Naidu used his head to put the ball past El Camino’s goalie. This great teamwork and ball movement gave Santa Monica a two-goal lead.
Santa Monica was not even close to stopping there. Standout sophomore, Carlos Rincon, scored a goal that not many could have. The ball had just enough air under it and ended up in the back of the net. After the game, coach Pierce called this play “Individual brilliance.” This goal gave the Corsairs a 3-goal lead and took the wind out of El Camino’s sail. Rincon got loose and scored another goal on a break away giving Santa Monica a 4-goal lead at the end of the first half.
After the game, when Rincon was asked about his two goal day he said, “I was just finishing, just a regular day, practice put into the game.” Rincon showed skill and humility, he seems ready to continue his dominant play. Rincon also stated, “We were simply better than the team we played today, and it was because of the practice we put in.”
During the second half, on a broken play Santa Monica’s Martinez scored once again. This gave the Corsair’s a five-goal lead and put the game away. When asked how he managed to score multiple goals, Martinez said “I came out with everything I had, and when you're focused things turn out the way you want them to.” The concentration displayed by Martinez was evident. He came to win. The sophomore went on to say, “This dominant game goes back to practice, when you work hard it'll show in the games.”
The Santa Monica players kept mentioning practice as the key reason for their dominant showing. Coach Pierce said, “We had a good week of training, we had no game on Tuesday, and this allowed us to have two very good days of practice, we had one just okay day because it was really hot, but this helped with the preparation.”
El Camino battled the whole game, and they deserve credit for not quitting. Coach Pierce mentioned, “This was a really good team, but we had a scout on them, and we were expecting a very hard fought game.” The Warriors ended up scoring a late game goal, but their coaches were not happy. El Camino’s assistant coach Ever Morataya said, “We really need to work on our defense, and today we paid for not being ready.”
Though their defense was stout throughout the whole afternoon, the Corsairs did manage to score a flurry of goals and they continued to look like a very deep and dominant team. The final score was 5-1, with the Corsairs coming out on top. Santa Monica now has a record of two wins. zero losses, and one tie.
Santa Monica’s men's soccer team will play again at home on September 19th, at 4 PM against LA Harbor.