The Centralia College men’s soccer team kept its Saturday afternoon match with Tacoma Community College close in the first half, but six Titans goals in the second half were too much for the Trailblazers in an 8-2 loss.
Tacoma converted on an outstanding six of its nine second-half shots to pull away. After the Titans took a 2-0 halftime lead, they blitzed the Trailblazers with three goals in six minutes and scored three more throughout the second half.
Centralia College’s scoring came from Orlando Benavidez Jr. in the 57th minute and Mario Silva Gutierrez in the 70th minute.
“They’re one of the best teams in the conference,” Trailblazers head coach Noel Vasquez said of TCC. “Today, with where we are in our situation and it being sophomore night, I just wanted to keep the same roster and let the sophomores finish their careers at home. We knew that the outcome could vary, and I think the first half was very promising. Unfortunately, we went away from our game plan in the second half, and it cost us quite a bit.”
Centralia College (2-15-1, 2-11-1 in NWAC) is winless in its last five matches, although it did draw with South Puget Sound Community College on Wednesday, Oct. 22. The Trailblazers, in its third year as a program, will visit Pierce College on Wednesday, Oct. 29 in their final chance to improve from their two-win season last year.
CC celebrated its 11 sophomores before their final regular season home game. Rico Ewell, Angel Rojas, Damian Hernandez, Owen Jacobs, Carlos Angel Hernandez, Mario Silva Gutierrez, Timur Berishev, Brady Mitchell, Fernando Lopez, Alan Cox and Shota Nojiri are sophomores who will be moving on from the program after this season is completed.
“One of the things that people don’t take into consideration is we’re still establishing. We haven’t been here long enough to where people are knocking on our door and saying, ‘I want to play for you.’ I think at some point, we’re going to get to that point, but these guys were crucial in getting that started,” Vasquez said of the sophomores. “The freshmen who will be returning next year have a different point of view of how to play because they saw what the sophomores were trying to establish.”
