Men’s Soccer: Late goals by Atilano gives Long Beach 3-3 tie with El Camino

Freshman Joel Atilano (Artesia HS) scored a pair of late second-half goals over a two minute span to erase a two-goal deficit and help the Long Beach City College men's soccer team earn a 3-3 conference draw against visiting El Camino College on Friday at LBCC.

With the tie, Long Beach closes out the regular season with a 7-6-8 overall record and 4-5-5 mark in South Coast Conference play. The Vikings are playing their best soccer at the right time and are unbeaten over their last seven games. But Long Beach will have to wait to find out if it receives an at-large berth into the Southern California Regional Playoffs. Postseason pairings should be announced on Tuesday.

On Friday, the game seemed out of reach for the Vikings as LBCC trailed El Camino 3-1 with just 10 minutes to play. But Atilano was taken down inside the penalty box resulting in a penalty kick. Atilano buried the PK past El Camino goalkeeper Christopher Mellone in the 82nd minute to start the rally.

Then just two minutes later, freshman Jesse Hernandez (Mayfair HS) fed Atilano with a breakaway pass down the right sideline. Atilano was able to finish his shot for the equalizer to complete the comeback.

Sophomore Robert Burgos (Millikan HS) nailed a free kick from 30 yards out in the 20th minute to give Long Beach a 1-0 first-half lead. But El Camino got consecutive goals from Andy Nunez (49th), Angel Lomeli (63rd), and Kyrian Nwabueze (65th) to jump ahead.

Freshman Kifi Cabrera (Poly HS) posted four saves in goal for Long Beach while Mellone had three saves for El Camino (7-6-8, 6-5-3 SCC).