Men’s Soccer: Pirates lacking heroes
When sophomore Brice Manning went down recently with a season-ending injury, Orange Coast College men’s soccer coach Kevin Smith lost his team’s primary offensive catalyst.
And while the Pirates managed to dodge a loss against Orange Empire Conference visitor Cypress on Tuesday, the Pirates seem to be lacking the mentality necessary to cross the threshold of victory.
For it’s forwards Smith still has, yet it’s forward thinking, he believes, the Pirates lack.
“Someone needs to step up and want to be the hero and everybody is just content to be one of the guys,” said Smith, whose team had 14 of the game’s 30 shots in Tuesday’s 0-0 tie, the Pirates third scoreless deadlock of the season.
OCC (2-3-4, 1-1-1 in conference) has now managed just seven goals in nine games this season. And with Manning, a Newport Harbor High product, finished due to a broken vertebra after producing three goals in nine contests, no other Pirate has more than one goal.
“It’s disappointing because the games have been there for us to win,” said Smith, who knows a thing or two about scoring, having produced 68 points in four seasons as a forward at UC Irvine in the early 1990s. “There just hasn’t been a real commitment to the attack, and that’s what we’ve been so disappointed in. We have a great defense that is going to keep us in the game, so we want to take some more chances. We just don’t seem to have the right mentality to really just go for it.”
OCC had quality chances, including a hooking shot by freshman forward Carlos Valencia that caromed off the right goal post in the 19th minute.
Valencia led the Pirates with four shots, while OCC sophomore goalkeeper Nathan Brown was doing his part to protect the hosts’ fourth shutout, their third in the last four games.
“Nate made a phenomenal save on the play [sophomore forward Aaren Lewis, who leads the conference with 10 goals] got in on,” Smith said. “Nate is unbelievable.”
Smith also praised sophomore defender Marco Randazzo for his work in marking Lewis, while back-liners Kevin Gomez, Blake Mooney, Kai Nagai, Mathew Ellis and Ryan Brown also did helped keep the Chargers (6-1-3, 1-1-1) off the scoreboard.
Cypress, which had its unbeaten streak snapped with a 3-1 loss at Santa Ana on Friday, came in having scored a conference-leading 21 goals. The Chargers had not been shut out until Tuesday.
Lewis had the visitors’ best chance, carrying the ball to the top of the six-yard box before trying to lift a shot over the OCC keeper. But a sliding, charging Nathan Brown raised his arms to deflect it wide in the 59th minute.
Nathan Brown also deflected a shot from close range by Cypress sophomore Jesus Ibarra in the 83rd minute to add to the offensive futility. Brown finished with eight saves, as did Cypress keeper Braydon Welch.
Much of the Pirates’ scoring futility, Smith said, is self-induced.
“Right now, we keep bringing the ball out of the final third and we are going a little too slowly,” Smith said. “So, we allow [opponents] to get numbers back. We allow them to get six [players] to our four, which improves their chances. If we can get four vs. four, or even four vs. five, we are going to have better chances. We are just a little too sideways and backward in the attacking third.”
Though discouraged, and short-handed without Manning, Smith remains hopeful.
“If we weren’t creating chances, it would be one thing,” Smith said. “We had clear chances to win the game. I don’t think we need to go back to the drawing board. But we need more chances. You can’t have three chances and expect to win. We need to get six chances; eight chances. We need to get so many more numbers in the box. When we’re looking to get a cross in, there is only one player [in the box]. We need three players [in]. It’s just that commitment to just go for it, instead of playing not to lose.”