The Hawks men’s soccer team lost 2-1 on Friday to the American River College Beavers.
The game started off with CRC playing catch-up early due to ARC scoring their first goal five minutes into the game. ARC managed to take another shot at the goal on the far side of the field, but was blocked by sophomore goalkeeper Johnnie White.
“You have to have purpose in everything and I think we just dug ourselves into a hole,” said White. “The whole game, it’s us trying to get out of that hole and it’s rough.”
CRC had multiple opportunities to score, but fell short. Sophomore midfielder Tariq Alabi took a shot from the center circle and missed high.
After ARC got the ball back, they took a shot at the goal, but White was able to block it with slightly under seven minutes left in the half.
“I told the guys if we want to be champions, we have to have a championship mentality,” said team captain and sophomore forward Isaac Sandoval. “We can’t just come in and think that because of what we’ve done in the past that games are going to be handed to us.”
Ten minutes into the second half, CRC fouled an ARC player in front of the goal, giving the opponents an easy penalty kick. This caused the Hawks to fall behind 2-0.
Moshi Wilondja, a sophomore forward, scored the only goal of the game for CRC with a little over 14 minutes left. Wilondja expressed after the game that he was happy about the goal, but upset the team was unable to win.
Head Coach Ron Preble said that he believed there were some bad calls, especially toward the end of the game. Nonetheless, Preble said his team had their chances to win the game early on.
“We had three or four players where the ball fell in front of them in front of the goal, and they didn’t put it away,” said Preble. “Those are chances you can’t let go.”
Freshman midfielder Brandon Gutierrez said he believed the team can turn their recent losing streak around heading into their next matchup.
“Delta is going to be a different game,” Gutierrez said. “We’re motivated because of the two losses, but I think that we’re going to do way better and come back stronger.”