Huskies Shut Out West Hills Lemoore in Home Opener

by Cerwin D Haynes

With a roster composed almost entirely of freshman faces, East LA College Men's Soccer received what one player called a "wakeup call" last Friday. The Huskies dropped their season opener on the road to a very good San Bernardino Valley team, falling 4-0 to the Wolverines.

Today's home opener, however, showed that the Huskies may be quick to adjust.

With five different players finding the back of the net, ELAC shutout West Hills Lemoore 5-0 in the Huskies' home opener today. MID Irvin Ruiz, MID Carlos Gonzalez and F Lawrence White each had a goal and an assist, with F Yandel Garcia MID Xavier Villa also scoring a goal apiece. All are freshmen.

"We did some adjustments yesterday in practice that we saw in place today," said assistant coach Joseph Gomez. "We saw a lot of passing that we worked on yesterday."

Indeed, it appeared that East LA's footwork in their passing and dribbling was some of the best the home crowd has seen in quite some time. Equally important, the Pack showed a high level of pressure and physicality on both sides of the field. Lemoore only garnered four shots and one SOG all game. Freshman GK Angel Martinez played alert during the few times the ball was in his vicinity, and earned the shutout win with one save.

Head coach Eddie Flores gladly took the win, but knows his young Pack needs to learn it's a long season. "It's one game," said the veteran Flores. "Let's see how they carry today into Friday at Santiago Canyon."

HUSKY BITS

• ELAC had 25 shots and converted 5 of 12 SOG. They also had 10 corner kicks (nine in the first half) compared to just four for WH-Lemoore.

NEXT UP:

The Pack travel down to Orange to face the Hawks of Santiago Canyon College on Friday 8/30. Gametime at 12noon.