Cal State LA Captures 2017 CCAA Men's Soccer Championship Crown
Post Game Press Conferences:
Cal State LA |
Cal Poly Pomona
LA JOLLA, Calif. – Cal State LA entered the week as the fifth seed in the 2017 CCAA Men’s Soccer Championship. After upending No. 4 Chico State, outlasting No. 1 Cal State Dominguez Hills and taking down No. 2 Cal Poly Pomona, the Golden Eagles secured its third CCAA title and earned the league’s automatic bid into the NCAA Division II Soccer Championship field on Sunday afternoon at Triton Stadium.
With the 2-0 victory, Cal State LA heads into the postseason with a 13-4-3 overall record, while Cal Poly Pomona stands at 14-5 and now awaits their fate at the hands of the NCAA Division II selection committee.
“Pomona’s obviously put together a great team and a great program, put in a really good effort today,” said Cal State LA head coach Chris Chamides. “We’re fortunate to have advanced and won. We worked so hard. We had that challenge of having to play a quarterfinal, and then go into overtime in the semifinal, and a lot was asked of the boys. We didn’t really have the legs to do all that we wanted today, but we were making sure we didn’t flinch in certain situations, and I can’t give our boys enough credit.”
As the No. 5 seed, the Golden Eagles are the lowest seed to win the tournament since the six-team format began in 2013.
The offensive action started early in the contest, with Cal Poly Pomona’s Jimmie Villalobos firing from the left side in the sixth minute as the tournament’s Most Valuable Defensive Player Steven Barrera secured his first save of the day.
Less than a minute later, Cal State LA’s Robin Lindahl received the cross from Most Valuable Offensive Player David Elizaga and put the shot into the upper left corner of the net to nab the early lead in the game. With the Broncos playing from behind for the remainder of the game, Cal Poly Pomona head coach Adam Reeves knew that recovering from the early miscue would be a challenge.
“We know who Cal State LA are, and what you saw is what you get,” reflected Reeves. “If you give up a goal against Cal State LA it’s going to be very difficult to fight and claw back in it.”
The Broncos were not without their chances in the bid to equalize, but the Golden Eagles’ defense denied all 29 of the Cal Poly Pomona shot attempts in the game, needing only nine shots of their own to earn to victory. Late in the contest, Cal State LA’s Elizaga raced down field to receive a pass from Julian Zamora and his one-on-one shot found its way past Broncos keeper Jason Trejos with just over two minutes remaining in the game, capping the scoring.
Cal State LA has now secured a spot in the NCAA field as the CCAA’s automatic qualifier, and the Golden Eagles await the brackets and seedings which will be announced Monday, Nov. 6 at 3:30 p.m. PT, on ncaa.com.
“We’ve been playing playoff soccer for a while now,” noted Chamides. “We dropped some points during the year, and we didn’t feel so great about that and we knew we were having to go uphill a little bit. Going into the last couple weekends we did all that we could to qualify. They did that, and now we said now let’s just go one day at a time here, one game at a time and the boys did a great job at being mature and professional with their approach and put everything into every performance.”
2017 CCAA All-Tournament Team:
| Name |
Yr. |
Pos. |
School |
| Steven Barrera |
Sr. |
GK |
Cal State LA (Defensive MVP) |
| Morten Bjoershol |
Fr. |
D |
Cal State LA |
| Jose Garcia |
Sr. |
M |
Cal Poly Pomona |
| David Elizaga |
Fr. |
M |
Cal State LA (Offensive MVP) |
| Tim Klefisch |
So. |
M |
Cal State LA |
| Robin Lindahl |
So. |
F |
Cal State LA |
| Sergi Monso |
Sr. |
M |
Cal Poly Pomona |
| Luis Najera Jr. |
Sr. |
F |
Cal Poly Pomona |
| Leonardo Nogueira |
So. |
M |
Cal State Dominguez Hills |
| Ranier Plantinos |
Sr. |
F |
San Francisco State |
| Kareem Salem |
Jr. |
D |
Cal State LA |