Huskies Turn up the Heat in the Second Half to Tame Brahmas

by Cerwin D Haynes

(photos by Henry Caceres)

Trailing 1-0 at halftime to the Brahmas of Los Angeles Pierce College, East LA men's soccer head coach Eddie Flores noticed that his players took it upon themselves to realize the game was still theirs for the taking. 

"Why do we have our heads down," was the comment observed by Flores. "We dominated in the first ten minutes...we touched the ball a lot."

Indeed, the Huskies came out the gate as the aggressors, pressuring Pierce into some mistakes that turned into early shot attempts for the Pack. But the Huskies came away empty, and a lapse in said aggression ultimately lead to a goal by the visitors (Vic Cano, 10').

With the Huskies pepping themselves up during halftime, they began the second half with the same aggression as the start of the first: attacking Pierce's dribblers, cutting off attacking angles while winning the physical battles to the ball. ELAC eventually got more shots on goal and better angles. In the 50', Freshman D Edison Salado booted a 15' left-side shot off a cross from freshman MF Carlos Gonzalez that eluded LAPC GK Tony Ramirez, tying the game at 1.

Ten minutes later, East LA would take the lead: Gonzalez dribbled the ball about seven feet to the right of the net. He sized up Ramirez, and angled his shot to the right of the reaching goalie into the net. And then the dagger came in the 78', when freshman MF Xavier Villa caught substituting GK Arnoldo Hernandez out of position off the right side and managed to chip in a 13-footer before he collided with Hernandez.

Huskies freshman GK got the win, improving to 2-1-1 with three saves.

HUSKY BITS

• Carlos Gonzalez had a goal and an assist. He leads the team in the early goings with six points on the season.

UP NEXT:

ELAC will travel up to Bakersfield on Tuesday to face the Renegades at 3pm.