The562’s coverage of Vikings athletics is sponsored in part by Long Beach City College.
After back-to-back overtime victories, the Long Beach City College men’s soccer team had a familiar foe standing in their way in the SoCal Regional Championship game: Cerritos College.
In the SCC regular season and SCC Tournament, LBCC found themselves in a tie against the Falcons before winning in penalties in the SCC Tournament semis.
But on Saturday night in front of a standing room only crowd, sophomore Jose Mariscal scored a hat trick to guide the Vikings to a 3-1 win to claim the Socal Regional Championship and punch their ticket to the State Final Four.
“This feels good,” Mariscal said. “This is what we were going for. It’s always an exciting game going against Cerritos. It’s always about who wants it more and in this one, we wanted it more.”
After Cerritos took a lead in the 25th minute, the Vikings were able to equalize in the final minutes of the first half as Mariscal redirected a shot from Ulises Grado for the tying goal.
It was a physical second half, and Mariscal’s pair of late second-half goals provided the lift for LBCC, who won their 19th game of the season, the most in school history. His second goal came in the 66th minute, on a second assist by Grado to give LBCC its first lead.
Mariscal put the game away in the 84th minute when he rounded the Cerritos keeper and put away the clinching goal off an assist by Hector Tellez. LBCC goalkeeper Abraham Ramirez finished with seven saves for the Vikings as they reached the Final Four in California for the first time.
The Vikings had never won the SCC Tournament, and it was a historic performance by Mariscal to help get them there. He became the first LBCC player ever to score a hat trick in the playoffs, according to head coach Cameron Beaulac.
The Vikings will now head to American River College in Sacramento next week for the CCCAA State Soccer Championship.
