The Citrus College women’s soccer team handily defeated the West LA College Wildcats 5-0 Friday, Sept. 16.
Citrus dominated on offense, peppering the Wildcats with nine shots on goal. The Owls’ constant pressing was their best defense. West LA was limited to one shot on goal in the match.
Leading scorer Jacqueline Mejia established reliable scoring with two goals in the first half, assisted by freshman midfielder Danielle Lagrave and freshman forward Alejandra Vargas.
“We had a thought that we should be dominating the game,” Mejia said. “Even though we had two goals the first half, we felt like they were still beating us, in a way. I think towards the end we picked it up.”
In the second half, Citrus got into a habit of scoring goals. Danielle Lagrave converted a gem of a chance to an easy goal. A well-placed corner kick by Yasmine Ramirez into a header by Sydney Lujan for the defender’s first goal of the season. Midfielder Jaline Miranda scored a solo goal to wrap up the offensive assault.
“It feels good to score,” Lujan said. “The team played with unity, with our passes and our crosses.”
This win is a rebound for the Owls who lost a close game to LA Pierce College 1-0 on Sept. 13. The women’s soccer team improves to 3-3 on the year.
“Up to this time, we’ve had a hard time scoring some goals,” assistant coach Brian Dorman said. “We’re just trying to get that last pass, that penetrating pass. And we were able to do that today, we were able to get behind them and create some chances.”
West LA has struggled with personnel in recent games. Their goalkeeper was injured in their previous game, and lost some players to injury in this game as well, said West LA head coach Rob Looyen.
“It’s a pretty difficult defeat for us,” Looyen said. “We’re injured, knocked around a little bit, but they played well, and we didn’t. But our program is in good shape.”
The Owls play continue their home defense Tuesday, Sept. 20 against Oxnard. Citrus won their previous match in the season, 1-0.
“Our hope today was to just make ourselves better and do the things we need to do, so when we play the highest level teams, we’re doing things really well,” head coach Tim Tracey said.
