Men’s Soccer: No. 4 Cerritos too much for Long Beach, Vikings fall 3-1

The Long Beach City College men's soccer team suffered a 3-1 South Coast Conference loss to visiting Cerritos College on Tuesday at LBCC.

The loss dropped Long Beach to 3-7-2 overall and 1-2-2 in the SCC while Cerritos, ranked No. 4 in the CCCAA/CCCSIA state rankings, improved to 8-2-2 and 4-1-0 in conference play.

The Vikings found themselves trailing early, as Cerritos came out aggressive from the opening whistle. Just four minutes into the contest, Gerardo Soto fed Thiago Lusardi with a breakaway pass for a goal. Lusardi beat LBCC goalkeeper Jorge Becerra with a nice shot from the left side of the box to give the Falcons a 1-0 lead.

Lusardi and Soto connected again for Cerritos' second goal. Soto bent a free kick from outside the LBCC box that Lusardi headed in for a score in the 23^rd minute.

Trailing 2-0 at the break, the Vikings came out in the second half and appeared to connect more passes on the offensive attack. But Cerritos put the game away with a goal in the 55^th minute by Nicholas Escalante off a cross pass from the right side by Dominic Escobar.

The Vikings finally got on the scoreboard in the 80^th minute with a penalty kick goal by freshman Francisco Magana.  

Cerritos outshot Long Beach 16-5 in the contest including nine shots on goal. Becerra totaled five saves for the Vikings over the first 70 minutes of the game and freshman Luis Angiuano had one save to close out the contest.

Benito Gonzalez was credited with one save for Cerritos.

Long Beach returns to action on Friday (Oct. 12) when it travels to El Camino College – Compton Center for a 4 p.m. conference game.

Photo: LBCC's Bacilo Hernandez and Sergio Sanchez defend Cerritos' Gerardo Soto on Tuesday (by Chris Ruiz)