Team ends year with high hopes

Nikki Ferguson completed his first season coaching the women’s soccer team with high hopes, despite a 7-0 loss to Los Medanos College Friday at home.

The blowout loss showed the difficulty that the Comets (1-13-0 overall, 1-9-0 in the Bay Valley Conference) had with the Mustangs’ (10-9-1 overall, 6-4-0 in the BVC) offense. The experience and aggressiveness of the Mustang team was a wall in the Comets’ path to the goal.

“I felt like we tried our best. They’ve got more experience than us,” midfielder Dorothy Briseno. “You can tell that they have been together for a while. They know all their moves, and they are more aggressive than us.”

Contra Costa College’s offense was rendered useless against the LMC defense.

A lack of communication between the midfielders and forwards prevented the Comets from getting the ball up the field, leaving them without any shots on goal.

The Mus-tangs got on the scoreboard nine minutes into the game with a free kick by midfielder Laura Martinez. LMC would net its second goal on a corner kick in the 22nd minute by midfielder Guadalupe Sepulveda, who received the cross from midfielder Daisy Sornia. Sornia would get her goal four minutes later to give the Mustangs a three-goal lead at the half.

The Mustangs had 18 shots throughout the game, dividing nine per half.

“(LMC is) a good team, a physical team, and at the end of the day that’s all that mattered,” Ferguson said.

The first half was mainly a showdown between the Mustangs’ offense and the Comets’ defense.

The only time that the Comets got the ball into their opponent’s box was 29 minutes into the game on a free kick into the box. But despite several attempts to try to get a shot in, the Mustangs rejected the ball from the box.

“We did our best. It was our last game; we wanted to give it our all,” Comet defender Claudia Garcia said. “We maintained our happiness. We kept our heads up high to end the season.”

In the second half, the Comets would lose forward Lorhany Silva due to an ankle injury from a foul.

Within a minute into the second half, Mustang forward Maria Acosta found a way to dribble past the Comets’ defense to extend the LMC lead. And within five minutes, the Mustangs scored twice more to put them ahead 6-0, scoring their seventh and final goal on the 71st minute.

“(The Comets) didn’t quit, they continued to play, even when (the Mustangs) were the better team,” Ferguson said.

He said that the real work starts now, during the offseason, so the team can remain fit and gain better soccer technique for next season.

Despite the loss, Ferguson was optimistic of how the year went.

“We’re a young program, we started from scratch, we’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us,” he said. “Overall, I’m happy with our season. It says a lot about the team. It was a very demanding season. Some would say it was failure, I say it was a success.”

Contact Dariush Azmoudeh at dazmoudeh.advocate@gmail.com

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