Saddleback Soccer cruise through to round 2 after thrashing of Santa Monica

Saddleback Bobcats Soccer team after winning first round victory over Santa Monica BJ McNicol | Courtesy

The Saddleback Bobcats defeated Santa Monica College in a 6-0 rout as they advanced to the second round of the California Community College Athletic Association Southern California Regional Playoffs.

Head coach BJ McNicol talked about how he wanted the team to play before the big match.

“Yeah you can tell they are nervous and they want to play,” McNicol said. “The cool thing is we played a high intensity that mimics the game, we pushed them hard and we have a big athletic group, and no major injuries.”

Saddleback put pressure on early, but Santa Monica’s defense didn’t let a goal in until the 44th minute.

Coach McNicol also talked his strategy to the game.

“So we like to be the team that strikes first, last year we coined ourselves the ‘mobcats’ not the bobcats because we just started a little bit faster than what teams are used to seeing,” he said.

“Our gameplay is just play the way we have been playing, and getting in touch with each other, and to not play kick ball because that is not what we are good at,” said defender Averee Campos. “By connecting with each other is just what we do best”.

Campos did just that as she assisted for two of the six goals which lead the team in assists for the match.

The Bobcats struck late in the first half in the 44th minute when Kylie Beau scored after a throw-in from Summer Hackett to give the Bobcats an early 1-0 lead.

The second half for the Bobcats is when they really turned up the pressure as Chloe Green scored her first goal in the 54th minute of a beautiful through ball from Averee Campos.

After Green’s first goal she got her second goal of the match off of a low driven free kick from Averee Campos in the 66 minute. 25 seconds later Christina Santoyo buried her first goal of the match on a rebound shot that was taken by Abby Grabowski that hit the crossbar.

The fifth goal of the match was flipped as Grabowski scored off an assist from Santoyo in the 72nd of a great pass.

In the final 10 minutes of the match, in the 81st, Christina Santoyo fired a rocket from 25 yards to make it a 6-0 lead.

The next game will be this Tuesday against the Cypress Chargers, a rematch of last year’s round three matchup where Cypress came out on top beating Saddleback.

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