Orange Coast College

Pirate men score late, salvage tie with Riverside

Friday, October 20, 2006

COSTA MESA - On the plus side, the Orange Coast College men's soccer team is unbeaten in its past for games.
The bad side -- only one of those games finished in a win.
The Pirates earned their third tie in their past four games -- a 1-1 deadlock with Riverside on Friday in Orange Empire Conference action.
"The guys are working hard and I know one of these games, we're going to have a 6-0 win come out of it -- I just hope it's not too late," OCC head trainer Glenn Strachan said. "We've only got a few games left and we're going to have to find a way to score multiple goals and get some wins."
Two is definitely the magic number for the Pirates (6-6-4, 2-3-3 in conference). When they score two or more goals in a game, they are a perfect 5-0 this year.
Riverside (5-7-1, 3-4-1) took the lead in the 19th minute when Adrian Hernandez fed a nice pass to teammate Bret Bergman, who headed a shot past diving Pirate goalkeeper Alex Roberts (four saves) to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead.
OCC dictated the play in the Tigers' end of the field most of the game, but, like the story this year, goals were hard to come by.
Two excellent opportunities for the Pirates just missed as a header by John Clark rang off the post in the first half and a free kick by Ian Cone, buzzed by the wrong end of the upper-left corner of the goal.
With the Pirates pressing for a goal, their work was finally rewarded in the 82nd minute when Cone dribbled deep down the left side and slid a nice cross-field pass past Tiger goalkeeper Jonathan Easley (seven saves) to Nathan Barnett, who drilled the ball into the empty net to tie things up.
The tie gives the Pirates four points for the week and nine conference points. With only six games remaining (four on the road) each win from here on out would go a long way toward a playoff berth for the Pirates.
OCC returns to action on Tuesday at Santiago Canyon for the first of three straight on the road. Game time is set for 3 p.m.