October 14, 2012
By Tadzio Garcia
The East Los Angeles College men’s and women’s sports teams went 5-2 last week with the wrestling scoring the biggest upset of the week against No.11-ranked Rio Hondo College last Wednesday, Oct. 10.
The women’s volleyball team also recorded an upset win at home last Wednesday. The Huskies won 3-1 over Los Angles Trade Technical College .
The Huskies lost the critical third match against Trade Tech but bounced back in the fourth match to grab the momentum and to close out the win.
Some of the ELAC faithful began watching the volleyball game then dashed to the men’s gym to watch the Husky wrestlers.
“I had to watch both games because I was hoping both would win,” student Mike Sanchez said.
After losing two consecutive games, the ELAC football-11 started a new streak with a 40-34 win at Victor Valley College yesterday. Back-up quarterback Adrian Diaz threw for a school record six touchdowns.
The men’s soccer team duplicated Diaz’s six scores with six goals themselves in their home win against the El Camino College Compton Center Tartars last Tuesday, Oct. 9.
The men’s and women’s soccer teams, neither of them ranked, split their games this past week both beating the Compton, 6-1 and 1-0 respectively, and both losing 1-0 battles against El Camino College.
The men’s team lost four games this season each by one goal. They are 1-4-1 on the road with five of nine remaining games away from home.
The men’s cross country team, who have all of their games on the road, took 7th place out of 21 teams at the 2012 Mt. San Antonio College Cross Country Invite. The women’s team ran to a 12th place finish out of 26 teams.
Wrestling team pulls off stunner
By William Hernandez
The score was 19-all going into the final match in a dual against the state’s No. 11-ranked team, Rio Hondo College, with the crowd chanting “let’s go Huskies.”
The Huskies were represented by heavyweight-285 pounder Julian Zuniga who won by a fall as the match was ending. The No. 13-ranked Huskies had their upset in front of an unusually large crowd of almost 200, last Wednesday, Oct. 10
“In wrestling it comes down to who wants it more, in that situation I made sure to not let my nerves get a hold of me”, said Zuniga following the match.
Leading up to Zuniga’s pin, the Huskies rallied after losing to RHC in 4 of the first 5 matches followed by an Andrew Reel 8-4 decision.
Following Reel’s match was Francisco Aceves who lost an intensified match that had Head Coach Ralph Valle on his feet and constantly shouting.
Huskies gained vital ground in the following two matches led by Joshua Newman 174 pound win.
Newman’s pin would prove to be the sparkplug as the crowd would quickly become a factor in the dual. Michael Middlebrooks then scored a 7-1 decision in a dominant one-sided match.
The Huskies would capitalize on their momentum run and would win the match when Zuniuga recorded a fall over his opponent. The final score of the dual was 25-19.
Volleyball also earns an upset
By Edward Singleton
The Huskies won another backstreet rivalry thriller taking out Los Angeles Trade Technical College, 3-1, Friday Oct. 12, in the women’s gym.
ELAC won 25-22, 25-19, 24-26, 25-19 ending their seven game losing streak. “I am proud of the young ladies. We have been through some little tumultuous behavior… it’s not easy having a new coach, new program, new mind-set and so putting all that together, the game, the friendship, the comradery. I am very proud of what they have accomplished,” First-Year Head Coach Elliott Walker said.
“The girls are really settling down and beginning to understand exactly what volleyball is, through a system of how to fight, how to win and how to use strategy to accomplish what we set out to do,” Walker said.
Game one starters included Jessica Delgado, OH, Angelica Duarte, middle, Nissia Gamez, setter, Marisa Carrill, OP/DS/L and Lorena Cibrian, DS. In that game Delgado went for a kill. The ball hit an LATT Beaver in face with the ball, who seemed stunned but OK. Delgado served a total of 27 kills.
Game two was neck and neck until Delgado scored point 15 with a kill that got the momentum going for the Huskies as they reacted loudly. The Huskies began to pull away from the Beavers winning the game by six points.
“She’s [Delgado] is improving every week. I thought there was going to be a language barrier… they’re really forcing me to use Spanish… I think I’m Puerto Rican now, ya know,” laughed coach Walker. “She’s definitely been improving every single week. And I don’t think it’s just her, I think all the girls are,” Walker said.
Game 3 was neck and neck until the end. Both teams seemed to be responding to other with combat- like intensity in each of their serves, blocks and digs. During the game Shantel Del Aguila, DS replaced Duarte for several points though Duarte replaced Aguila to finish the round. LA Trade-Tech however squeezed out a two-point win to temporarily avoid a loss.
Game 4 was more controlled by the huskies, leading throughout the bout. At one point in the game Claudia Mosqueda, OH/OP, showed integrity by telling the referee that the Huskies were incorrectly given a point which was then deducted from the Huskies and given to LA Trade-Tech. Mosqueda however, was given a yellow card for waiting some time before telling the referee about the mistaken point awarded to ELAC.
“The girls are really settling down and beginning to understand, exactly, what volleyball is. Through a system of how to fight, how to win and how to use strategy to accomplish what we set out to do,” said coach Walker as a final remark.
Their next game will be held at ELAC against neighboring rival Cerritos College on Oct. 12. The Huskies then travel to Los Angeles Harbor College Wednesday, Oct. 17, for a 6 p.m. SCC match.
Runners finish in top half of each race
By Antony Merjanoff
The No. 14-ranked men’s cross country team was able to beat out rival No. 12-ranked Pasadena City College on Friday by 30 points in the men’s 4-mile Mt. SAC Invite.
The Huskies ran against six of the top 15 teams in the state placing seventh out of 21 teams in the 4-mile race. The Huskies are stonger than their results because the ran short with three Huskies absent.
Andres De La Cruz was the top runner for the Huskies finishing in ninth place, in 21:24 minutes, out of 271 runners.
He was followed by Daniel Rincon-Zaragoza in 21:41, Kris Chacon in 22:09, Gonzalo Ceja in 22:24 and Daniel Fernandez in 23:14. All five Huskies scored for the team.
“The men’s team really stepped it up. There is still room for improvement that we’ll hopefully see in the next two weeks,” Head Coach Louis Ramirez said.
The women’s team was upset by Golden West College but had enough left in them to beat out Santa Ana College by nine points placing 12th out of 26 teams in the 3-mile race.
The top women’s runner for the Huskies was Megan Magdaleno who finished in 19th place in 19:13 minutes followed by Linda Alvarado in 21:15.
“Megan has really stepped it up to be the number one runner,” Ramirez said.The women finished with an average runner time of seven minutes, a huge improvement.
Diaz leads the football team to victory
By Anthony Merjanoff
In the absence of East Los Angeles College star quarterback Aaron Cantu, backup quarterback Adrian Diaz stepped up big time in his first start this season. Diaz was able to throw a record tying six touchdown passes in a 40-34 win over Victor Valley College.
His six touchdown passes tied fellow teammate Aaron Cantu and former Husky quarterback Santiago Alvarez for most touchdown passes in a game for ELAC. Wideouts Max Moreno and Bryan Munoz-Alvarez each had three touchdown catches for the Huskies.
The Huskies did most of their damage in the second quarter when Diaz threw three of his six touchdown passes in the quarter.
Women’s soccer splits after being upset
By Danny Vasquez
After beating the Compton, 1-0, at home on Tuesday, Oct. 9, the Huskies were upset, 1-0, at El Camino College in South Coast Conference play, Friday, Oct 12. Neither team is ranked but ELAC received more votes than the Warriors in both the state and South Region polls.
The Huskies drop to 4-5-4 overall, 1-3-2 in the SCC.
A solitary goal during the first half of the game was enough for El Camino to extend their winning record to three straight games, giving the Huskies their third conference loss.
The play started when El Camino was awarded a corner kick and Becca Maier kicked the ball straight to Natalie Medina who headed the ball the left side of the goal over Husky goalkeeper Belen Rodriguez for a 1-0 Warrior lead.
After that, the Huskies had several chances to tie the game with Jessica Guzman up front. “We had our chances but we couldn’t find the back of the net. As a team we need to play with heart. We just need to put the goals away,” Guzman said.
In the second half, El Camino was awarded with two corner kicks and two free kicks, but couldn’t connect thanks to the ELAC defense. The first one was when El Camino generated a counter attack that finished with a one-on-one between a Warrior player and Husky goalkeeper Rodriguez, but the referee called for an offside by El Camino.
“They (ELAC) are a good team. We did well against them and we won,” El Camino Assistant Coach Jaymie Baquero said.
ELAC Head Coach Tessa Troglia said that the Huskies started slow and were not able to get into rhythm until the last part of the first half.
“We came out flat, allowed a goal within the first 20 minutes off a corner kick. We didn’t create as many scoring opportunities as we would have liked. We played well the second half, just a little too late and couldn’t put one in the net,” Troglia said.
“El Camino played very defensive to protect their 1-0 lead, and although our girls out possessed them, we weren’t able to put any chances away.”
The Huskies return to action at No. 6-ranked (South Region poll) Los Angeles Harbor College Tuesday, Oct 16.
Men’s soccer scores 6-1 win
By Liliana Marquez
A brace from Adolfo Larios and well-taken finishes from three other Huskies gave ELAC a 6-1 victory over Compton Center on Husky turf at Weingart Stadium, last Tuesday Oct. 9.
Compton’s Alfredo Munguia opened the scoring 12 minutes followed by Husky goals from Larios and one each from Salvador Medrano, David Farias,Daniel Llanos and Christian Altamira.
Farias spoke about the win. “It was a must-win game. There was no room for losing in order to save our season,” Farias said.
The Huskies sank in the SCC rankings after a 1-0 defeat against El Camino College at Murdock Stadium last Friday, Oct. 12.
ELAC’s goalkeeper Juan Escobar admitted that El Camino’s goalkeeper had a good performance and that the mistakes made by the Huskies helped the Warrior goalkeeper during the game.
Escobar also said that he felt frustrated because, for him, the Huskies had a better performance than El Camino.
“We came out stronger and things didn’t come out the way we wanted. But like our coaches said, ‘stay strong together. Things come out but, hey, that’s game of soccer.’ My teammates and I are staying together (working) as family.”
The team fell to 4-5-4 overall and 2-3-1 in SCC play. The Huskies have two home games next week— LA Harbor on Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 4 p.m. and Friday against Long Beach City College at 6 p.m. with a last gasp in the run for a playoff berth.