Corsairs remain undefeated 3-0 after victory in home opener
Victor Tapia stepped left and cut right with a window of opportunity as his defender lunged by him. One man to beat; the goalkeeper laid out but it was too late as Tapia's shot had already rolled to the bottom corner of El Camino's net. Santa Monica had a 2-1 lead with mere minutes left in the contest.
Santa Monica College's Men’s Soccer team remained undefeated by downing the El Camino Warriors 2-1 in the Corsair's home opener on Friday afternoon. The Corsairs have now won their first three games to open their season.
El Camino jumped to a lead when defender, Carlos Torres opened the scoring with a laser of a free kick from about 25 yards and time in the first half winding down.
After controlling the first half yet trailing at half time, SMC came out strong in the second half. SMC's freshman forward, Stuart Sloan, evened the score for the Corsairs only seven minutes after retaking the field for the second half. The native of Scotland perfectly lobbed an arching shot over the heads of the El Camino defense from 20 yards out and into the back of the net. As the ball sank into the goal, Sloan instantly pounded his chest and loudly screamed, “Let’s go!” as his teammates mobbed around him to celebrate the goal.
The Corsairs created numerous opportunities to score, yet struggled to find the game winner.
However, with the time ticking away on the scoreboard and the score still knotted at one goal a piece, Corsair forward Victor Tapia wowed the crowd with an excellent move. He zig zagged his way by a long defender and threaded the ball past the outreached arms of the El Camino goalkeeper to give Santa Monica a 2-1 lead with less than ten minutes to go.
“It was a good experience,” said Tapia, “Coach told me to penetrate the ball and to take the chance if I saw one. I saw a one on one opportunity and took it.”
The Corsairs roared back to take the lead and overcome a deficit to earn their third win of the season.
Head coach Tim Pierce was faced with adversity and had to shuffle through his lineup to try and find what players would be able to push them to victory.
“It’s so early in the season that guys are showing in practice really well and they are making it difficult on the coaches,” said head coach Tim Pierce. “We have a lot of subs we can use in the games, we were like 18 or 19 deep today which is great, a lot of guys getting minutes.”
Pierce seems confident in his team this year as Santa Monica looks to build off of Friday’s win as the season continues.
“We had plenty of chances to score goals, but we were down 1-0, that’s soccer,” said Pierce. “We gotta keep doing the things that make us successful.”
The Corsairs continue their 2015 campaign on Friday, September 11 at Chaffey College where the men's team will look to extend their opening win steak to four straight wins.