On September 16, 2022, the COS Men’s Soccer team tied with Cabrillo College with a final score of 1-1. While not able to win, a tie allowed the Giants winning streak to continue nonetheless, and they can look forward to their game against Lake Tahoe College on Tuesday, September 20.

As for the game against Cabrillo, it may have been the toughest competition that COS has faced thus far. In fact, the only time goals were scored in this game was in the second half, from the time span of 47 minutes to 55 minutes.

For Head Coach Renato Bustamante though, the lack of scoring wasn’t just due to a potent Cabrillo defense, but to a change in mentality from his players on a game-to-game basis.

“In this game, if you don’t show up with the right mindset and the right spirit behind your actions, you’re not going to be successful. That’s one of our biggest challenges, that we need to make sure we show up with the right mentality and the right spirit so we can compete,” Bustamante said.

While it is hard to sustain a winning mentality throughout such a low-scoring game like this one, COS was able to score and keep the ball off their side of the field consistently throughout the game. Goalie Yuliang Chu prevented five balls from scoring out of the total six shots on the goal, allowing only one to get past him.

Although in this game, one is the difference between a win, a loss, and a tie. Fortunately, in this case, it didn’t lead to a loss and his stellar defense shines bright on the COS scorecard.

On the offensive side of the ball, player Joshua Aguirre-Ramos scored their only goal of the game at 47 minutes in and was assisted by Cristian Trujillo.

Bustamante also went on to comment on the nature of tough games like this, and how this game will go on to impact future games, saying, “Cabrillo was very good. [Having tough games] is going to happen if we want to be a top team; top teams play tough matches and soccer is a low-scoring game and when you have two teams that know what they’re doing it’s hard to crack it open.”

While it may have been hard to crack open, the offensive pressure that COS applied is very clear to see with five shots on goal attempted throughout the game, which is just one less than Cabrillo.

Bustamante continued, “You know we gave ourselves a chance, we took the lead, but unfortunately, we had a loss in concentration right after that which was very costly. But ultimately, what’s important for us, is that we’re still undefeated and still pushing for our objectives.”

Those objectives, while seemingly farther away at the moment, are still very much within reach for COS as they start their season 5-0-1 before even entering league play.

They will start their conference games on September 30 against Fresno City in a home matchup.

Entering the fifth week of their season, COS Men’s soccer has one goal in mind: to win, to have fun while doing it, and to keep a strong mental game that will push them through to the end of this year.

Bustamante closed with, “[I’m proud of] the personality, the character, you know. The ability to grind the game out and not give up and not lose. I think in a game like this, you want to win, but what you don’t want to do is to lose.”

Their next home game is a September 20 home game against Lake Tahoe College with a 1:00 p.m. start time. Make sure to come out and support the team in their attempt to keep the win streak going!

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