Box Score

September 30, 2008

Men’s Soccer:
Unbeaten streak at 11, LBCC beats El Camino 3-1 to open South Coast Conference play

The Long Beach City College men’s soccer team extended its unbeaten streak to 11 games with its 3-1 win over visiting El Camino College on Tuesday in both teams’ South Coast Conference opener.

Freshman forward Manuel Batista paced the Vikings with a goal and two assists.

The win improved Long Beach to 8-0-3 overall and 1-0 in the SCC while El Camino dropped to 3-7-7 and 0-1 in conference play.

Despite the final score of 3-1, the Vikings had numerous chances to score early in the game.

But Long Beach got on the board in the 14th minute.

Batista sent a long cross pass from the left side to freshman midfielder Warwick Newbold. Newbold nailed his shot past El Camino keeper Ismael Casillas to give LBCC the 1-0 lead.

El Camino tied the game in the 35th minute, getting a breakaway goal from Luis Paz with the assist from Tony Sandoval.

Whatever the LBCC coaching staff talked to its players about at halftime worked, because the Vikings took just 30 seconds after the second-half whistle to score.

Sophomore midfielder Jose Caniz fed Batista with a breakaway pass. Batista took the pass and one-timed a shot into the back of the net to put Long Beach up 2-1 in the 46th minute.

Long Beach added to its lead just moments before the end of the game.

Caniz nailed a long pass to Batista near the end line, Batista then fed freshman midfielder Kevin Morgan in front of the goal and he placed it past Casillas for the 90th-minute goal.

LBCC outshot El Camino by a 19-9 margin. Sophomore Chris DeWalt posted four saves in goal for Long Beach while Casillas had six saves.

Long Beach returns to action on Friday (Oct. 3) when it travels to Pasadena City College for a 3 p.m. SCC game.