During the week ending on Friday, Sept. 23, COS Men’s Soccer played two games against two tough opponents. Once against Lake Tahoe on September 20, where they lost 0-3, and once where they tied against Los Angeles City College with a score of 2-2.

For the game on Sept. 20, COS took their first loss of the season against an extremely tough opponent of Lake Tahoe College. Even though COS didn’t give up a single goal until the second half of that game, they ended up surrendering three goals in a span of 15 minutes, with one at 60 minutes, another at 68 minutes, and a final one at 75 minutes.

“It was a tough game, and moving forward they’re all going to be tough games. You obviously have to analyze and recognize the moments that you just have to be better, and the moments that you have to read with a little more expertise and savviness to avoid those moments where you are vulnerable,” said Head Coach Renato Bustamante.

Although they couldn’t prevent those vulnerabilities in the first game of that week, the second game was an entirely different story. Coming into that game, Los Angeles City hadn’t had a goal scored on them in their last 600 minutes of game time, so it was clear going in that it would be a dogfight.

Once the game started and the players got out on the field, it was clear that no opponent, no matter how good they sounded on paper, was untouchable.

To start off the scoring, LA City jumped on the scoreboard first which was good for a 1-0 lead in the 20th minute of play. However, Joshua Aguirre-Ramos was able to tie it in the dying seconds of the first period with his first goal of the day, bringing the game to 1-1 with 45 minutes to play.

In the second half, LA City once again sprinted out of the gates and scored a goal at the 60- minute mark, bringing them up to a 2-1 advantage. However, with just five minutes to play in the game, Aguirre-Ramos assisted Ernesto Pacheco for the second COS goal of the game, and the final scoring play of the afternoon, leaving the game at a 2-2 tie.

Although COS couldn’t come out on top in this game, there were many things to like about how they performed. While they were still able to score two goals, Goalie Yuliang Chu was able to prevent nine other shots on goal from going in, which is something that should not be overlooked.

Aguirre-Ramos and Pacheco, with each of the points they scored in this game, were able to bring their season total up to four goals, tied with Adrian Lopez for the most on the team.

For Head Coach Renato Bustamante, losing the five-game win streak is just a small speck of sand on the beach that will be their season.

“We’re not really too caught up on the win streak, what we want to do is we want to be there at the end of the season, so what we need to do is just continue to correct those details that will help us later on down the line,” Bustamante said.

COS men’s soccer will have its first in-conference game this Friday, Sept. 28, so make sure to come out and support the team in what will prove to be one of their bigger games this season.

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