The Pima Community College men’s soccer team opened its portion of the NJCAA Division II national tournament with a victory on Monday at the Stryker Sports Complex in Wichita, Kan.
The No. 7 Aztecs (17-3) scored two goals in the first half on their way to a 3-0 win over No. 11 St. Clair County (Mich.) in Pool B play.
Pima will play No. 2 Iowa Lakes to close out Pool B play on Tuesday at 11:45 a.m., Tucson time.
he winner will advance to the national semifinal round.
St. Clair County (15-5-1) got its one shot on goal in the first minute, but the Pima defense held them in check the reminder of the game.
Freshman Leonel Gutierrez (Salpointe) put the Aztecs on the scoreboard in the 27th minute with his left-footed shot just inside the box.
Freshman Sean Ribadeneira made it 2-0 as he converted on his shot that was also just inside the box. He hit it with his right foot that deflected off the goalkeeper in the 43rd minute.
“As Cos (coach David Cosgrove) says, as a winger, the moment you get the ball, you want to go at them as quick as you can and that’s what I tried to do,” Ribadeneira said about his goal in a Pima press release. “He was trying to make me go outside so I put it on my right foot, and got lucky on the deflection.”
Sophomore Nathan Flores added some insurance as he scored on a free kick that was left of the goal-post and just outside the box in the 68th minute.
“Cos let us know that we needed to get out in the second half, get us to 3-0 and be on a comfortable page for all of us,” Flores said. “Alda (Aldhair Valenzuela Rodriguez) and Guzman (Sebastian) winning the 50-50 battles for us helped us very much. We let them know before the game started, they had to have a great game defensively for us to get on the counterattack and get some goals in the net.”
The Aztecs had 12 shots on goal as freshman Tommaso Leonardi closed out the game with one save.
This was Pima’s 10th shutout win of the season.
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