The Cosumnes River College men’s soccer team started a three-game winning streak before the conference playoffs after beating American River College 1-0 at home on Nov. 3.
The team won their previous games against the San Joaquin Delta Mustangs on Oct. 27 and the number one seed of the Big 8 Conference, the Santa Rosa Junior College Wolverines on Oct. 31. CRC remains number two in the conference at 5-2-1.
“We’re kind of in that situation where every win right now is a win towards conference, towards playoffs and we still have a lot to play for,” said Head Coach of Men’s soccer Ron Preble.
In the first half, both teams struggled to score and CRC’s backline held it together by leaving the half scoreless. Many offsides calls were made on CRC, which slowed down the game and contributed to missed scoring opportunities.
CRC bounced back as their momentum rose in the second half. More scoring opportunities were given and set-pieces were awarded to create chances for the team to lead.
“Second half we adjusted. We wanted to keep the ball more in the half space and we started creating more quality chances,” said Assistant Coach of Men’s Soccer, Sanaldo Carvalho.
CRC was given three yellow cards in the second half for slowing down game play. These yellow cards were for taking too long to throw the ball, standing in front of a player during a free-kick, and for tying shoelaces before taking a kick after an offsides call on ARC.
The game was aggressive with many fouls being called in both halves on CRC and ARC. CRC had more possessions and utilized their back-half when necessary for passing and scoring plays.
CRC’s attacking-third made several attempts in the second half to score. Ultimately, CRC was able to put the tie to rest with a goal from Freshman midfielder Kaushik Sriram.
Sriram said this was his first time scoring for CRC and he felt happy about it. He said he saw the space in the PK area where the goal box is, anticipated the ball would come to him and prepared himself to shoot.
“We had a lot of chances to score and unfortunately we couldn’t capitalize on all of them but we got the win,” Sriram said.
CRC men’s team plays next at Modesto Junior College against the Pirates and another win for them leads them closer to playoffs.
