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Posted Aug 24, 2012, 7:42 am
Pima Community College's men's soccer team had a strong start to their 2012 season, beating the Gauchos of Glendale Community College by a stunning margin of 5-1 at Aztec Field on Thursday afternoon.
Pima started strong with a near-goal from J. C. Henson in the first minute. Henson would come back in the ninth minute to score, this time off of a rebound after a header from first-year player Tyler Terrel was punched away.
Terrel widened the lead in the 16th minute when he took an shot from the far left that rocketed past Gauchos goalkeeper Daniel Romo.
Despite the two goals, the Gauchos were not without chances. Many of their efforts, however, were broken up in the box and the team was forced to take long distance shots. Aside from the shots taken by forward Hanzel Rodriguez, Glendale's left-sided combination of Andre Suazo and Chris Wannah made for some dangerous moments for the Aztec defense, but none of their efforts ended in a goal.
Gaucho's midfielder Prince Gbeadeh pulled one back in the 41st minute with a powerful shot that slid past Pima keeper Ben Eyde.
If the reduced lead gave the Gauchos any hope at half time, they were dashed a minute after the teams got on to the field when Declan Fulton powered his way past the Gaucho defense and found the back of the net. He scored another in the 69th minute later off of a pass from Terrel.
J. C. Henson, who opened the scoring, closed the game off in the 87th minute off of an assist by Kyle Cornell.
Both of the players that had a pair of goals, Fulton and Henson, are graduates of Sierra Vista's Buena High School. Fulton ended the game with four shots on goal, Henson and Terrel each had three. Terrel had assists on two of the goals.
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The team travels to play Chandler-Gilbert Community College on Saturday, and travels to Yuma on Tuesday for a match against Arizona Western College.
'Any time we score five goals...'
It wouldn't surprise anyone that coach Dave Cosgrove liked the result.
"I'm very happy," he said after the game. "We're a lot more dangerous than I thought we'd be."
"Any time we score five goals, we're going to be happy," he continued.
The team didn't try to slow the game down to hold their lead, it's a style that Cosgrove likes to see from his players.
"We're going to keep attacking...it's pretty much the same game plan," he said. "We wanted to attack, we wanted to hold on to the ball, we wanted to be dangerous...regardless of the score, we wanted to stay very aggressive."
Cosgrove also pointed out that second string players came in late in the match, and they had something to prove. All told, five subs came into the game and combined for four shots on goal.
Former Lancer anchors back line
Pima had the advantage in shots on goal, 16-11, but it was not the overwhelming advantage you'd expect from the score line. Still, the defense had forced many of Glendale's shots to come from outside the area. Helping to anchor the defense was a first year player, Salpointe graduate Chase Brennan.
"We're not the biggest team," admits Brennan. "We've worked a lot of positioning and it's really worked out."
"He's always had a reputation as a gamer," Cosgrove said of his new center back. "He certainly delivered today. I thought he was very good."
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