With their 3-1 win over visiting Santa Barbara City College on Saturday, the Cerritos College men's soccer team will be heading back to the 3C2A State Tournament for the first time since 2019. The Falcons (15-6-3), who were seeded #8 for the Southern California Regional Playoffs, defeated the #21-seeded Vaqueros (9-8-7), who recorded three upset wins in the postseason to reach the 4th Round. Cerritos will now play in the state semifinals at Saddleback College next Friday at 4:00 p.m. and will face Canada College, who advanced after beating Fresno City College on penalty kicks.

It was the Rams that ended the Falcons season in 2019 with a 1-0 win over Cerritos in the semifinals, while the last time the Falcons took on Canada was in 2007 and ended with a 1-1 tie at the Hartnell Tournament. The other NorCal team that qualified for the state tournament was Hartnell College, with the Falcons losing a 3-0 decision in 2024 in their last meeting. Both Canada (13-2-7) and Hartnell (17-3-4) are members of the Coast North Conference, while the Falcons and Los Angeles City College (15-4-7) are members of the South Coast Conference.

In the win over the Vaqueros, Cerritos had the game in control for the majority of the day, as they opened a 3-0 lead. The Falcons opened the scoring in the 27th minute when sophomore Allan Gonzalez (Lakewood HS) scooped up a loose ball in Vaquero territory after racing past the last defender and saw his low shot find its way into the far post for the opening goal.

A little over 10 minutes later, it appeared as though Santa Barbara City had tied the score, but the goal by Liam Saban was called off due to an offside call.

Using that as a wake-up call, the Falcons doubled their lead a minute later when sophomore Gustavo Arias (Fairmont Prep HS) fed a pass into the box to freshman Nathan Pineda (Santa Fe HS), who was able to chip a shot into the far corner and a 2-0 advantage heading into intermission.

Throughout the duration of the game, the Cerritos defense was able to prevent the Vaqueros from completing their long passes, as they looked to make quick-strike attacks. The group of Christian Marin (Bishop Mora Salesian HS), Brandon Sanchez (Long Beach Jordan HS), Giancarlo Morales (Palos Verdes Peninsula HS), Joshua Chavez (Ambassador School of Global Leadership HS) and Edgar Ausencio (Linda Esperanza Marquez HS) were crucial to limiting Santa Barbara to just eight shots, with five of them on goal. They scored their lone goal in the extra time of the second half.

Cerritos closed out their scoring in the 50th minute when Arias picked up his second assist of the day. He fed a thru pass to sophomore Pedro Reyes (Connections Academy HS/Cal State Fullerton), who beat Vaqueros goalkeeper Arturo Alegria to the ball, as he came out to make an aggressive move. Reyes (pictured, left) was able to chip the ball past Alegria just as he made his move to clear the ball and scored his third goal of the season.

Photos by Daryl Peterson