Orange Coast College

Men's Soccer: Pirates fall to Long Beach City, 2-1

Friday, September 05, 2008

COSTA MESA -- After a pair of convincing victories to start the season, the Orange Coast College men's soccer team found itself on the wrong end of a 2-1 nonconference decision to visiting Long Beach City on Friday.

"Two good teams out there today ... we just came up short," OCC head trainer Glenn Strachan said. "We had a couple of easy wins to start and I think we came out a bit overconfident. We tried to force things in the middle instead of working wide and their good defense kept us out of the middle. It was a tough loss – we’ll have to see how we respond from it."

It was a scoreless struggle for both teams before LBCC (2-0-1) scored in the 52nd minute. Off a Manuel Batista free kick, Warwick Newbold found the loose ball and ripped a shot into the back of the net for a 1-0 Vikings lead.

That lead grew to 2-0 when Zack Swart fed a pass to Paco Prado, who raced down the left side and picked the lower-right corner in the game's 66th minute.

OCC (2-1-0) had a few decent scoring opportunities throughout the game, but were denied. Finally, in the 90th minute, Gustavo Ibarra took a long pass from Edwardo Garcia and flicked a header past the charging Vikings goalkeeper. The ball found its way into the net and with just under 5 minutes of stoppage time, the Pirates still had an opportunity to tie things up.

In the game's final minute, Behzad Hashemi took a shot, but the ball rolled into the arms of Viking keeper Chris DeWalt (eight saves), ending the Pirates' chances.

Freshman goalkeeper Jake Mahlstedt had six saves for the Pirates, who travel to Glendale College on Tuesday night for a 7 p.m. nonconference matchup.