Orange Coast College

Men's Soccer: Riverside rolls past Pirates, 7-4

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

COSTA MESA -- It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who the offensive playmaker was for the Riverside College Tigers.

Freshman Jimmy Martinez, who leads the Tigers as well as the Orange Empire Conference in scoring, scored four goals and dished out two assists in Tuesday's 7-4 win over Orange Coast College.

The performance against the Pirates gives Martinez 26 goals and 14 assists in 14 games for the Tigers (9-4-1, 4-3 in OEC).

For OCC (7-6-1, 4-2-1), Jordan Gorman notched three goals and had an assist, while Will Munoz added a single goal. Additional assists were provided by Derek Woody and Luis Gallardo.

Martinez helped get the Tigers on the scoreboard first when he fed a pass to Edgar Gomez, who ripped a shot past starting goalkeeper Brian Rippeto (five saves) in the seventh minute.

OCC responded when a nice offensive possession led to an attack from Woody, who slipped a pass to Gorman and the freshman forward ripped a low shot into the right corner of the goal in the 17th minute to tie things up.

Two minutes later, Coast took a 2-1 lead when a Gorman header was stopped by Tigers' goalkeeper Alexander Perez, but the loose ball was kicked in by Munoz.

From there, Martinez and the Tigers grabbed control of things. The freshman from Rancho Verde HS scored the next three goals in the first half to give Riverside a 4-2 lead, then, scored early in the second half for his fourth tally, giving the Tigers a 5-2 advantage.

Coast responded with a penalty kick goal from Gorman in the 56th minute to make it 5-3. Then, in the 78th minute, Gorman's third goal of the game cut the deficit to 5-4.

But the Tigers would respond with a pair of late goals in the game's final three minutes to seal the win.

Coast returns to action on Friday at Santiago Canyon (3 p.m.) before returning to the OCC Soccer Complex on Tuesday against Cypress (3 p.m.).