By Tim Cornell / Staff Writer
By Tim Cornell / Staff Writer
An offense heavy second half leads the Riverside City College Tigers to a victory in their first game of the California Baptist University Lancer Invite on Sept. 28.
RCC defeated CBU’s B team 13-11. After being held to just three goals in the first half, the Tiger’s scored ten goals in the second and third quarters combined.
After being held to just one goal in the second quarter, RCC outscored the Lancers 5-3 in the third.
“We tried to tighten up our defense (after halftime) and work a little bit harder on the defensive end of the pool,” said RCC coach Nate Hass. The coaching staff knew the counter was going to open up for them late in the game, said Coach Hass. RCC dominated the majority of the fourth quarter, out scoring the Lancers 4-1.
With 2:30 to play in the game and down by four, the Lancers scored three goals in 82 seconds to decrease the RCC lead to one. With 00:58 left in the game, RCC gave the ball to Chris Forte who scored the game-sealing goal.
“The last goal by Forte was big for us because it put us up by two with under a minute to go which is hard to come back from,” Hass said.
That was Forte’s fourth goal in the game. Trent Virgil also recorded a hat trick for the game with three goals.
The team dropped its second game of the day to the Concordia Eagles B team 11-10. The game went into overtime.
A potential game winner for RCC bounced off the top of the goal with 5 seconds left in regulation.
RCC struck first in overtime with a goal from James Myers, but were then unable to score again while the Eagles scored two in the overtime period.
On the second day of the tournament, RCC faced the Occidental College Tigers and the Chapman University Panthers.
The team won both games with a final score of 17-10 and 13-11 respectively.
Both of these games were the season openers for Occidental College and Chapman University.
Overall, RCC posted a 3-1 record at the CBU Lancer Invite.
RCC moved to 4-4 on the season following a win against the Orange Coast College Pirates on Sept. 26.
The final score of the game was 14-10. This victory keeps RCC perfect this season in conference games. Posting victories against the Orange Coast Pirates and the Santa Ana College Dons.
The team is number one in the Orange Empire Conference with six points in two victories.
RCC has three conference games left. The team is playing the Fullerton College Hornets away and then the Saddleback Gauchos and the Golden West Rustlers at home.
Golden West edged out RCC for first place in the Orange Empire Conference last season.
The Rustlers went a perfect 5-0 in conference play.
They defeated RCC 19-13 and 20-10 in their two meetings last season.
RCC has a 7-5 record on the season after the CBU Lancer Invite.
At this point last season, the Tigers had a record of 5-7.
The next games for RCC will be at the RCC tournament on Oct. 5 and Oct. 6 at the RCC Aquatic Complex.
