Women’s Soccer: Pirates surging forward
Orange Coast College women’s soccer coach Kevin Smith assessed that the strength of his Pirates was at the back end of their formation.
A look at their results this season would indicate a similar trend, which is making the No. 15-seeded entry in the Southern California Regional playoffs a tough out.
The Pirates confirmed their status as a potential season-spoiler on Thursday, thumping No. 18-seeded visitor San Diego Mesa, 3-0, in a play-in game to advance to Saturday’s first round against No. 2-seeded Rio Hondo at the University of La Verne at 2 p.m.
OCC, which failed to make the playoffs in 2014, began this season 2-3-3, during which it outscored opponents 13-12. But ever since, the Pirates are 10-2-1 and have amassed a 30-3 scoring advantage. Smith’s squad is 5-0-1 in its last six contests with a 14-1 goal differential in that span.
Thursday was the 12th shutout of the season for the Pirates, who have not allowed a goal since before Halloween.
“On any given day, we can be brilliant,” Smith said. “If we bring the enthusiasm and intensity and desire, it seems to work for us. When we are an emotional team and we are on it, we are going to be tough to beat.”
The Pirates, their coaches and their fans had plenty to be enthusiastic about Thursday as the defense was stifling the Olympians (13-8-1) and the offense was gashing the visitors’ defense to create several strong scoring chances.
A through ball from sophomore midfielder Rachel Meier that sophomore forward Cori Haney finished in the 15th minute verified the Pirates’ supremacy early. Haney directed the ball from about 10 yards out, past a charging goalkeeper for all the hosts would need.
But 14 minutes later, freshman forward Sydnee Busby tacked on, taking a feed from freshman midfielder Emma Gomez and directing the ball at an extreme angle from beyond the left goal post to just inside the right post to double the margin.
Haney capped the scoring in the 75th minute, heading in a rebound off a shot from well beyond the 18-yard box by sophomore defender Manuela Ramirez. It was Haney’s team-leading 13th goal of the season, giving her three more than Busby.
“Her work ethic is phenomenal,” Smith said of Haney. “For 90 minutes, she just keeps going. If you are playing against her, if you don’t make every play, or you make a mistake, she is going to be on it. She’s just tenacious. It doesn’t matter if we’re winning, 5-0, or losing, 5-0, she is just going one speed and it’s really fast.”
Smith said his team underachieved offensively, converting less than half of its dangerous scoring opportunities.
But, defensively, Smith has high praise for a unit that has helped sophomore goalkeeper Odalis Elias lower her goals-against average to 0.71.
“The backbone of our team is really our defense and up the middle, starting with [sophomore defensive midfielder] Ana Villanueva,” Smith said. “She wins a lot of balls, and [Ramirez] wins a lot of balls. And in the back, [sophomore Janna Purcell] does a great job sweeping and cleaning up. When [the Olympians] started to look dangerous, she was able to come in and make some big tackles, so the ball never got back to our keeper.”
OCC hopes to keep on keeping on against Rio Hondo (13-1-4), which it played to a 0-0 tie in a nonconference home game on Sept. 9.
“We’re on a pretty good run and confidence is pretty high,” Smith said. “But I still think we haven’t had our best performance yet. So, as the competition gets tougher, I’m hoping that we can really put it together and do that.”
Haney and Busby had four shots apiece, but the remainder of the Pirates’ 14 shots came from six players, all of whom had one apiece.
Elias had just two saves on Mesa’s 13 shots.
“We didn’t make the playoffs last year and didn’t have the season we wanted to have,” Smith said. “So our goal as a staff and with a bunch of returners, was to get ourselves back on track to where we felt the program should be. We should be in the playoffs every year and competing not only for a conference championship but a state championship.”
