LBCC’s Laila Alfadheil had the game winning goal to advance the women’s soccer team to the second round of the Southern California Regional Playoffs on Wednesday after a thrilling game against Orange Coast College that went into double overtime and came down to penalty kicks.
The penalties ended in a 6-3 victory for LBCC which means the Vikings will be facing Saddleback College on Saturday in the semifinals for the chance to advance to the 3C2A State Championship game.
Goalkeeper Jackie Garibay had five crucial saves in the game, including three of the Pirates’ penalty kicks at the end to help secure the Vikings’ win.
“I think we played phenomenal, honestly we gave it our all. Our season did not deserve to end there. I mean we put in the work here, we’ve put in the work at practice and I’m so proud of our girls. We deserve this and we deserve to savor it all and I can’t wait to get back to training tomorrow,” Garibay said.
Freshman forward Lorena Moreno scored the first goal of the game for the Vikings in the first period to put Long Beach up 1-0.
Less than a minute later, the Pirates’ Clarissa Sullivan answered with a goal of her own to make the score 1-1.
At the 29 minute mark, Laila Alfadheil, the freshman midfielder from Garden Grove High, scored the second goal of the game with assists from Samantha Soria and Josefina English to put the Vikings up 2-1.
In the second half, the Pirates came out with more intensity and Grace Graham scored within the first minute to tie the score 2-2 with 44 minutes remaining in the game.
The game was scoreless for the remainder of regulation and went into double overtime where both teams failed to score.
The game came down to penalty kicks where the Vikings sealed the victory.
Midfielder Sydney Trump spoke about how the players deal with the pressure that comes with having to decide a tough game with penalty kicks.
“Honestly we just gotta hype each other up even if you don’t feel confident. I was telling one of my teammates ‘you’re gonna make it’ because she’s been not as confident with doing (penalty kicks) lately and she’d miss it. But she was the last one to go tonight and she nailed it,” Trump said.
Tensions were high at the tail end of the game as the Vikings’ head coach Agustin “Tino” Nunez was ejected from the game after receiving a red card and was forced to watch his team win from outside of the pitch.
Coach Nunez said he felt relief once Alfadheil’s penalty kick went in and solidified the Vikings’ victory.
“I’m happy for the group. I know they’ve been working and fighting so I’m just proud of their fight and just happy that they’re able to move and that our season’s not over,” Nunez said.
As for preparing for the semifinals game versus Saddleback College on Saturday, Nunez said the coaches will be working hard to set their team up for success.
“We’ll enjoy this one tonight but we just gotta start looking into our next opponent and seeing what we have to do to make sure that we go in there ready to go. Our job as coaches is to find as much info on our opponent and try to help our girls go into the game prepared,” said Nunez.
If the team wins on Saturday, they’ll advance to the third of four rounds of the State Championships on Nov. 26th.