By Matthew DeForest, Oct. 19, 2021
The CPP men’s soccer team participated in its first home-stand of the CCAA season with a dominant 7-0 win over the Cal State East Bay Pioneers. The Broncos scored three goals in the first half of the match while the Pioneers attempted only a single shot toward the Broncos’ goal the entire duration of the game.
For junior forward Jerry Ramirez, the team’s determination to score stemmed from high expectations set by Head Coach Matt O’ Sullivan.
“Our Head Coach Matt hammered it into us that if the game ended 3-0 he would be upset. We knew that we were the much better team, we just needed to prove it,” said Ramirez. “We came out with the same fire in the second half and scored more goals.”
CPP started the scoring early in the game after a foul by the Pioneers gave senior midfielder Eduardo Faria the chance to kick a successful penalty goal, leaving the score at 1-0 just three minutes into the game.
The Broncos mainly focused their attention on offense, keeping the ball near the Pioneer’s goal for the rest of the first half. Ramirez scored two goals by the end of the first half, assisted by defender Garrett Jensen. At the start of the second half, Ramirez scored once more, completing a hat trick, which occurs when a single player scores three goals in a game. It was the first hat trick achieved by a Bronco since 2019 and the 14th hat trick in program history.
“At the beginning of the game, as a team we were very tentative and we wanted to feel them out a little bit. As the game went on, we were more aggressive with the shots and the more aggressive we got the more goals that came,” Ramirez said. “In reality, we have to be like that for the full 90 minutes and not 10 to 20 minutes into the game.”
Continuing to control the ball throughout the rest of the game, midfielder Max Laguna, defender Courtland Hawkins and forward Cris Prieto each scored goals during the second half of the match. This set the score at 7-0 with only 15 minutes left on the clock.
Freshman defender Ramses Carranza believes that playing in front of a home crowd has fueled the Broncos’ drive to play at their full potential.
“We never want to lose in front of our fans. This is our house,” said Carranza. “We’ve got to prove to everybody that when you come here you better expect a good game. We aren’t going to take any chances for granted and we are going to play every game like it’s a must win game.”
Despite the Broncos’ recent success, they are aware of the importance of consistency for remaining CCAA games this season, according to Assistant Coach Kevin McCarthy.
“The process of feedback and improvement is the same no matter what the score is,” said McCarthy. “So we’re going to go back and watch the film, dissect it, take out clips and work to improve on those imperfect moments during our training.”
The team is excited to take some momentum onto the road and further improve their CCAA record further.
“It’s a matter of mentality: as long as we come into every game with the same mentality that we had in this game against the Pioneers, no team in this conference can beat us,” said Ramirez.
The Broncos will take on the Cal State Monterey Bay Otters on Oct. 22.
All of the CPP men’s soccer games can be streamed for free directly from the CPP Athletics website or the CCAA website.
Featured image courtesy of Lyle Ibarra.