Moorpark College reverted to early season form and was trounced 7-0 by Western State Conference leaders LA Mission College Tuesday afternoon at Sylmar.
Seeking to consolidate their position in the pecking order, this win helped the Eagles’ chances of securing home field advantage for their postseason push.
“They’re a good team and we had a bad day, to say the least,” Head Coach Sean Roche said. “We’ve lost Javier for two games so far and he’s irreplaceable. Even at full strength, it would have been a struggle to keep them out. The fact that you have injuries means that you have to fill-in the holes.”
According to eyewitness accounts, the game was fairly evenly played until Mission scored first after 30 minutes. The Eagles added a second to make it 2-0 on the stroke of halftime.
“Five goals in the second half, but don’t blame any of them on Danny,” freshman Nate Johnson said. “No one enjoys losing 7-0, but when you’re down everyone starts to give up. It’s frustrating. I thought we were going to play a lot better than we did.”
Goalkeeper Daniel Moreno started the second half and disaster struck almost immediately. The Eagles converted a spot kick that was awarded for handball in the penalty area, making the score 3-0.
“The penalty was given away on a mindless handball,” Roche said. “It could have been somewhat of a mental breakdown. Nobody is helping us, not even ourselves.”
With the Raiders missing key players due to injury, the Eagles stepped up its attack in the second half. The defensive line in front of Moreno couldn’t withstand the constant bombardment and the goals kept pouring in.
“[After the penalty,] we started kicking the ball up the field, and they just came back at us,” the injured Javier Hernandez said. “That’s not how we usually play. They scored five goals periodically throughout the second half.”
Moorpark’s last game of the 2015 season will be played at Santa Barbara on Friday with kickoff at 1 p.m. Moorpark held the Vaqueros to a 2-2 tie at the Raiders Pitch in October and are hoping for a win to finish the season on a positive note.
