SMC's women's soccer comes to a draw with LA Valley College
Coming out of the half down 2-1, Jayma Martin slipped past her defender and sent the through ball from Nathaly Lopez into the Monarch net.
"Being down 2-1 refocused us and going into the second half refocused us," SMC head coach Tim Pehanic said. "Going into the second half the girls showed resiliency and came out a completely different team."
The game was almost a repeat of the two side's Sept. 30 matchup, which the Corsairs won in the dying seconds on a goal by sophomore forward Alyssa Ortega, as freshman forward Kristinal O'Malley had two clear shots to the net that sailed wide left.
Though this was the best chance for the Corsairs, who could penetrate the Monarch back line at will, they could not put a winning goal past Del Rosario.
The 32 year-old sophomore made two saves in the second half to preserve the draw.
"[Del Rosairo] made three or four great saves, credit to her," Pehanic said.
Someone forgot to tell Corsair forward Cheyenne De Los Reyes and Monarch goalkeeper Charlene Parrales, who was on the sidelines recovering from an ACL tear suffered at the end of last season, that the song goes, "Saturday night's all right for fighting," not Friday afternoon.
In the dying seconds of the first half, Los Reyes and Parrales were involved in an altercation on the sidelines which led to Parrales being banished to the stands.
"[The altercation] got everybody fired up. I thought a card was warranted [for Los Rios]," Monarch head coach Greg Venger said.
However, Pehanic did not think the incident affected his team. "We brushed that off real quickly," Pehanic said.
Though the sides were equal at the end of 90 minutes, the reactions from the coaches were markedly different.
"For us to come on the road and get a 2-2 draw, that's a good result for us," Venger said.
Compare that to Pehanic's thoughts on the game, "we've had better performances."
With the draw and College of the Canyons' win, the Corsairs fell out of first place in the Western State Conference South division. SMC, now 6-0-2 in conference and 12-1-2 overall, trails the Cougars by two points in the standings.
The draw LAVC moves to 8-5-2 overall and 3-3-2 in WSC play.