The men’s soccer team triumphed in their first home game win of the season against MiraCosta College (3-2) on Oct. 9.

Although the Knights took the gold for the game, they had a slow pace during the first half. Within the first 15 minutes of the game, MiraCosta advanced in the first point by midfielder Miguel Quesada with a heatbutted score. Quesada drove into Knight territory passing through the defenders and scored past the goal keeper’s reach.

However, the men got lucky two minutes later as the Spartans mistakenly scored the Knights first goal by defender Raul Guzman head butted the ball into the goal. The game tied at 1-1.

Throughout the first half, the Knights scrambled to score again. Freshmen midfielder Cyrus Huxford attempted to push through Spartans’ defenders to score. However, Huxford was unlucky as Spartans’ goal keeper Carlos Dominguez blocked his shots, but he was not the only Knight looking to score.

With two minutes left in the first half, MiraCosta forward Darion Mealing squeezed pass City players Charleston Bailey and Armando Contreras scoring the Spartans’ second goal changing the score to 2-1.

As the second half began, the Knights recharged and were more focused than before. It was most seen in midfielder Francisco Contreras’ performance as he consistently drove down the field making his way into Spartan’s territory multiple times. After Rafael Lopez’s attempt to score was unsuccessful, Contreras got the rebound and scored with an assist from Avelino Morales. The game tied 2-2 with 57 minutes in.

About five minutes after Contreras scored, Lopez found the back of the net and scored leading the Knights 3-2. As the game progressed, the Knights stopped the Spartans in multiple attempts to score.

Defender Anish Shetti explained the Knights were more successful during the second half and rejoiced in this win, “I think we started playing more as a team more. I feel great honestly. We’ve had a long season and it’s finally changing after all those loses. It’s finally good to win.”

Huxford explained his thoughts on the team’s performance, “I feel in our first half we turned around the ball a lot, and in the second half we got a rhythm. We started passing the ball a little more and trusting our teammates and got two goals.”

“The last two goals is something we were practicing a lot. So it’s kind of nice that they see that the hard work they put in…” Head Coach Milton Hidalgo commented.

“it was a game of two halves. The second half we came back and scored two goals, so we played better. The first half we’re a little bit too hesitant, we made a couple of mistakes and then we got punished,” Hidalgo said. “If we can play like we did for the second half, we’re going to win a lot more games than we lost.”