By Liliana Marquez
Failure to capitalize its scoring chances resulted in a 0-0 draw for the East Los Angeles College men’s soccer team against Long Beach City College in their first home match for South Coast Conference play Oct. 7 at Weingart Stadium.
The result puts the Huskies’ records at 3-4-3 overall and 0-2-1 in the SCC, while the Vikings (2-3-3, 0-2) are also winless in conference play.
ELAC’s next SCC match will be Friday on the road at Los Angeles Southwest College against El Camino College Compton Center at 4 p.m.
After opening SCC play with two losses against Cerritos and El Camino colleges respectively, the Huskies were looking for their first conference victory.
But the Vikings coped with ELAC’s offense, despite that LBCC rarely threatened to score.
During the second half, the frustration from the ELAC side was shown after some of the players tried to score, but failed, raising their arms in the air as a sign of clear frustration due to the lack of goals.
The Huskies were a man up for over 30 minutes of the second half and had plenty of chances to score, but they couldn’t put the ball in.
“We played good today, but we just couldn’t put the ball in the net. It wasn’t our day and we weren’t lucky today,” ELAC starting goalkeeper and captain Andy Gutierrez said.
For ELAC Assistant Coach Victor Clara, the Huskies are still a work in progress. He said that they keep improving every day and every game.
“We played well today, but unfortunately we weren’t able to score. Defensively we were on point and we had the ball. We did a good job at possessing the ball, but at the end of the day we weren’t able to execute and put the ball in the net,” Clara said.
One of the best chances to score for the Huskies came in the 17-minute mark when ELAC’s Horacio Zapiola was standing in front of the goal. He kicked the ball during a counterattack move to try and score the opener.
The ball hit the crossbar just when the ELAC players and supporters were about to celebrate the goal.
Although the Huskies had a good performance during both halves, Gutierrez said that their second half performance was better.
“We had a lot of opportunities and we played more with heart. We wanted to win, so we pushed for the win,” Gutierrez said.
Clara said that the team had a strong performance, but that the players were more dynamic during the first half, moving the ball better from side to side.
“For the second half we kind of lacked switching the point of attack and if we would have done that, we would have had a little more success,” Clara said.
The lack of goals seems to be a problem for the Huskies and Clara said that the coaching staff will try to fix the problem by having the team practice repetitions and shots on goal and also by building the players’ confidence. “We want these guys to feel good, be sharp and precise,” Clara said.
The Huskies kept trying to capitalize throughout the second half, and fought until the last minute to score the winner, but were left with only a point and the third consecutive match without achieving a victory.
