Women’s Soccer: Lasers blank Pirates
About a corner kick’s distance behind the Orange Coast College women’s soccer bench, stands the wooden structure that serves as the Pirates’ team room. But with a roster relatively lacking in explosive offensive players, OCC’s potential to be taken to the woodshed by opponents looms closer still.
Irvine Valley College produced a convincing 3-0 Orange Empire Conference victory at OCC on Tuesday that Pirates Coach Kevin Smith both acknowledged and downplayed.
“My [postgame] message was, ‘Let’s not panic,’” said Smith, whose team suffered its second straight shutout loss and is now 5-3-1, 3-2 in conference. The Pirates drop to fourth place, while IVC (6-1-3, 3-1-1) climbs into the top three.
OCC has scored just 10 goals in nine games, the same total it has allowed.
“Today was like a lot of the games we’ve played, in many ways,” Smith said. “But we’ve finished our chances in other games and we haven’t made mistakes defensively.”
OCC failed to finish its three quality chances and, Smith said, was charitable defensively on two of the Lasers’ goals.
“Both of their first two goals were terrible goals for us to give up,” Smith said. “The second one, our keeper would save 10 out of 10 times. I don’t even know what happened.”
IVC opened the scoring in the fifth minute after OCC had appeared to weather a threat. A shot in front by IVC’s Christina Anderson was saved by sliding goalkeeper Jordyn Gressier, who charged out and slid in front of Anderson to block the ball with her legs. But with Gressier unable to secure the ball with her hands, IVC’s Berenice Pacheco was able to poke it loose, into an open space occupied by Anderson. And Anderson popped the ball into the open net.
The Lasers doubled the margin just before halftime when Tiana Salazar sent a through ball to a streaking Virginia Hickman, who hit a driving shot toward Gressier. Gressier, who barely had to move, appeared to be in position for the save, but the ball, arching just above her head, slipped through her hands and just past the goal line, before she could regain control.
The Lasers, who have outscored foes, 10-0, in their last four games, a stretch in which they are 3-0-1, finalized the scoring in the 87th minute when Salazar assisted a goal by Rosa Soto Aleman.
“Give [the Lasers] credit,” Smith said. “They are pretty quick and they countered us pretty well. We were second best today, but if we’re playing well, I think we’re better than that [IVC] team.
“We don’t have as many attacking options as we’ve had in the past,” Smith said. “But as a group, we are usually pretty tight and don’t give up a whole lot [defensively]. Today, we just didn’t make some plays at key times. We have to be playing at a much higher level, because we don’t have the same margin for error that maybe some of my other [OCC] teams have had. We’re just a little too conservative. The message at halftime [delivered with some shouting by Smith in the shed] was to stop being worried about getting beaten [defensively]. Instead of us getting on the front foot and attacking, we were so worried about getting beat that we weren’t getting forward.”
The Pirates nearly stepped forward to produce a goal in the opening minute, but an open shot in front by sophomore Jordan Bradley was fired directly at IVC goalkeeper Nicole Dunn, who made the first of her six saves.
In the 25th minute, OCC missed another chance when sophomore forward Danielle Dapello’s open shot in front went directly at Dunn’s chest.
Bradley’s driving shot from the top of the 18-yard box banged off the crossbar in the 53rd minute for yet another missed opportunity for the Pirates, who eight shots just more than half of the 15 posted by IVC.
“On the first play of the game, we had an open net and didn’t finish,” Smith said. “Then, we had [Dapello] get through and kick it right at the keeper. We could have been up, 2-1, and it may have been a totally different frame of mind going into halftime. Instead, we give up a terrible goal going into half.”