By Liliana Marquez
Two braces for both teams lit up an entertaining encounter between the men’s soccer team and Fullerton College which ended even thanks to a 68th minute goal by Husky Adolfo Larios last Friday at Weingart Stadium.
This result gave ELAC their third draw with an overall record of 1-1-3. The winless Fullerton Hornets were left with an overall record of 0-2-1.
The Huskies will host Victor Valley tomorrow on ELAC turf at 3 p.m.
Against Fullerton, the Huskies wanted to get their first home victory on the season, but underestimated Fullerton who proved to be a tough rival for them.
“We started slow, we underestimated Fullerton and thought it was going to be a piece of cake,” ELAC Assistant Coach Felipe Bernal said.
Fullerton’s forward Alejandro Mora opened the score with a powerful and strong header over the 20-minute mark. The play started when the Hornets were awarded a corner kick.
The ball went straight to Mora who found the perfect angle to pitch it in. “My goal put our moral up and our momentum going. I was speechless.
I wanted to go and celebrate with the bench, but I was on the other side (of the field),” Mora said.
ELAC’s goalkeeper Juan Escobar was able to stop a Hornet shot from a free kick over minute 32 by throwing himself to the ground.
Husky freshman Jesus Mariscal scored five minutes into the second half when he took a shot near the midfield, taking Fullerton’s goalkeeper Roberto Diaz by surprise.
This was Mariscal’s first goal in his college career.
Fullerton’s work as a team payed off when Hornet midfielder Misael Samayoa scored the second goal during the 67th minute. “It was a fantastic goal.
“I just kicked the ball and figured if the ball goes in or not is a good shot and when it went in I just celebrated with my team,” Samayoa said.
Husky midfielder Adolfo Larios did not allow them to celebrate, scoring the equalizer a minute later, with an assist by Jimmy Espinal.
“When I scored the tie I just thought of keeping the ball going because we wanted to go for the win,” Larios said. For Larios this was his sixth goal for the 2012 season.
The teams battled for the win until the final whistle, but the game ended in a draw. “Both teams played hard especially during the second half.
Fighting every single ball and going after every ball. The result could have gone either way,” Fullerton Head Coach Alex Perez said.
“We came out hard and gave it our all. We didn’t finish every single ball we had but we came out strong and we did what we were supposed to do to get the tie.
“ELAC came strong as well. They came at us 100 percent, we came at them 100 percent. It was a good game by both teams,” Samayoa said.
“Good effort, really good fight, we gave it all, ELAC is a good team. We knew it was going to be a tough match,” Mora said.
ELAC’s Larios believes that the team needs to fight from the beginning to the end and not wait until they get scored on.
“It is the same thing as in the other games, we wait until we get scored on or until we are losing to pick it up and that is when we start attacking, but is too late,” Larios said.
“The game was more overflowed during the second half. We were basically trying some new players and see how they look. We were unlucky, we can’t change the result.
“Our big problem is that we don’t have a center back on the back. It depends on which team are we playing. It’s a work in progress, we have two games to go (before the start of conference play),” ELAC Head Coach Eddie Flores said.