Offense comes alive as Pirates top Lasers, 3-1

COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College men's soccer team snapped a long home scoreless streak and topped visiting Irvine Valley, 3-1, on Friday afternoon in an Orange Empire Conference matchup.

With a scoreless home drought reaching over 360 minutes, the Pirates (3-3-1, 2-1-1 in OEC) finally found the back of the net at the OCC Soccer Complex when Carlos Valencia picked up a loose ball off a shot by Maximiliano Aceves and slipped the rebound past IVC goalkeeper Elias Licea, giving Coast a 1-0 advantage.

The offensive barrage continued just two minutes later when Garcia returned the favor and, after beating a charging Licea for a one-on-one battle, fed a nice pass to Aceves, who buried his shot into the back of the open net for a 2-0 Coast lead.

It stayed that way through the rest of the first half and just 10 minutes into the second half, Coast made it 3-0 when Gaku Kawarai dribbled the ball down the right side and fed a nice cross-pass to Ramin Amindari, who slid and tipped the ball into the upper corner of the net.

The Lasers (2-6-3, 1-3) took advantage of a defensive lapse when Sean Goode stole the ball, went one-on-one with OCC goalkeeper Nathan Brown and scored into the lower-right corner of the net.

But that would be the lone ball to get past Brown as he notched six saves for the victory.

The Pirates will return to action on Tuesday at Golden West College, beginning at 3 p.m. OCC's next home contest will be on Friday against Santa Ana College, also at 3 p.m.