COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College men's soccer team, maligned with injuries and shorthanded with three suspended players, overcame it all and shocked visiting Santa Ana College, 1-0, before an energized crowd at the OCC Soccer Complex on Friday afternoon.
The Pirates (4-4-4 overall, 3-2-1 in the Orange Empire Conference) entered Friday's matchup with the Dons (7-2-4, 3-2-1) with six players injured for the year with various ailments. Added to that were three players out for one game due to yellow-card infractions. Throw all of that together and coach Glenn Strachan was handcuffed with lineup change options.
"We were down to only three available bench players, then, one of those guys hurt a knee and a second guy is hobbling around with an ankle injury, so actually, we were down to one available player off of the bench," Strachan said. "Talk about a gutsy effort. The players that we did have on the field really played with a ton of heart and we gutted it out. I couldn't be happier for these guys right now."
In the first half, the Pirates had the wind at their backs and nearly put a couple of goals on the board, but two breakaway scoring chances were negated by a pair of offside calls.
It remained scoreless after the first half and in the 56th minute, Coast nearly found the opening goal when Jose Garcia took a touch-pass from Ramin Amindari and ripped a shot towards the Dons' goal, but the ball just missed the frame.
The Dons also applied plenty of pressure, but strong defense by sophomores Blake Mooney, Adam Munoz and Marco Randazzo helped keep the threats to a minimum.
After a third OCC goal was negated by offside, the Pirates finally had a goal count when Garcia sent a long, high pass into the Dons' side of the field, where Carlos Valencia corralled it, moved past one defender with a nice touch, went past another defender and found himself 1-on-1 with SAC goalkeeper Dennis Hernandez (four saves). Valencia ripped a shot into the lower-left corner in the 86th minute and the OCC bench players -- those healthy enough to do so -- went nuts on the sideline.
Santa Ana sent the entire cavalry towards the Pirate defense and goalkeeper Nathan Brown. Brown, last year's OEC co-MVP, showed exactly why he was given that honor with several point-blank stops on the Dons' forwards. The 6-foot-5 netminder finished with nine saves, including seven in the second half alone.
Today's result helped further tighten up the OEC standings, with Golden West in first place, Santiag Canyon in second and SAC, OCC and Fullerton tied for third -- all within six points of each other.
Coast will return to action at Fullerton College on Tuesday, beginning at 3 p.m. OCC's next home contest will be on Friday against Norco, also at 3 p.m.