Following a huge win against College of Redwoods, the Contra Costa College men’s soccer team came in confident to face rivals from City College of San Francisco on Friday Aug. 30.
But confidence wasn’t enough: After a hard fought but dominant loss, the team experienced their first loss of the season.
“There’s a lot of things to build off of. I don’t think everybody is fully fit yet,” said team captain Brandon Garay after the game. “A lot of people are trying to adapt to the style of play, including myself.”
Coming in, the Comets were ready to take on San Francisco after taking a 2-0 loss to the team in the spring season. The matchup was exciting, as the Comets were ready to take their long ball system against City College, who played similarly.
The game seemed evenly matched for the first five minutes, as each team pressed the opposite team with possession full force. The question seemed to be which team was going to make the first mistake. Comets caught over a long ball on the left side, which let SF City forward to come in and take the first shot, allowing goalkeeper Victor Diaz to make a huge save and keeping the game scoreless.
However in the beginning of the sixth minute, San Francisco won a throw-in and took advantage of it. TheComets defender hesitated, allowing SF City forward Xavier Alexander Eld to slip in and hit the shot top corner, bringing the score 1-0.
The Comets shook off the first goal ready to come in and get it back for the next 30 minutes. Theyslowly started to get outplayed and dominated. While Diaz came in with another two amazing saves to keep them in, SF City forward Alexander Eld came in from a rebound off Diaz and brought the score to 2-0.
Frustrations arose as Comets started to foul more often. Rhett Kofford received a yellow card, and Comets teammates argued.
In the first half, starting the half strong, the Comets struggled to advance, but they were still not willing to go down without a fight.
After the second half began, the Comets picked up the pace a little as they found a chance early from a free kick. The SF City goalkeeper collected it but received a foul.
Diaz kept the game close with another huge save.
After 70 minutes of play, the Comets started to slow down again as San Francisco kept possession of the ball, overwhelming the Contra Costa team. Alexander Eld came in yet again at the 72-minute-mark with a hat trick for City College, making the game 3-0.shortly after, Romeo Ribeiro score brought the final score of the game to 4-0 – a win for San Francisco.
“There were some positives,” Garay, the team captain, said of the game. “But like I said – a lot to build off of.”
After this huge loss, the Comets showed urgency to not repeat last season’s result as after SF City they faced Butte college in Chico losing 8-0 raising the question how will they turn things around.