Ventura College played host to the BK Sports Community College Classic last weekend, the women’s soccer home team not only participated but looked to build character towards the regular season.

“Many schools make the trip to this prestigious classic as it is a nice warm-up to find where each team stands going into the competitive season,” said Pirate’s head coach Steve Hoffman.

The schools on hand were West Valley Community College (CC), Long Beach CC, San Diego Mesa CC, Orange Cost CC, and Ventura CC.

“[The tournament] is about finding where you’re at with the character of your team,” said Hoffman.

If it was character that he was concerned about, then he should be happy to know that against the Santa Rosa Community College Bear Cubs, his team showed a lot of heart.

Santa Rosa’s Karly Brown scored a third minute goal to put the Bear Cubs on top early on. The Pirates held on all through the first half and put some dangerous set piece plays along the way. In the 15th minute of the game Ventura had a good look at goal but nothing came of it as the ball scurried wide of the goal.

Going into half time the game was still 1-0 Bear Cubs. Coming out of the half time break the Pirates looked to attack and win the midfield battle. They did just that with opening up with an aggressive counter attack of their own in the 59th minute, which lead all the way up to a wide open shot but again the ball just trickled out wide past the goal post.

In the end the referee blew his final whistle with the Pirates falling just a little bit short but with nothing to be ashamed of.

“It takes a lot of heart to go down 1-0 in the third minute and to not get down on yourself,” Hoffman said. “I’m really proud of the way we carried ourselves.”

Tonight marks the end of the two day classic. Ventura goes out against Orange Coast CC with kick off at 5:30 p.m.

No. 8 Carissa Acre dribbles past a defender and heads up field.