Fresno City College men’s soccer team suffered a loss by way of penalty kicks in the second round of the Northern California Regional playoffs.

The Rams’ were trailing Cabrillo College by one goal at 90 minutes before Eligio Morales took the game into overtime with a 93rd minute injury time equalizer. The teams played an additional 30 minutes but they could not be separated.

Fresno, seeded No.5 in the northern region, were expected to go through into the next round, but Cabrillo College, seeded No. 13, had already caused an upset when they defeated No. 4 ranked Santa Rosa  in the previous round.

Cabrillo College started off brightly, but they were restricted to two early shots from distance, neither of them troubled the Rams’ goalkeeper.

Fresno took a while longer to settle, but started to create a few chances. Duce Bell headed over from a corner kick and Morales shot wide within the first ten minutes.

The first half was a tight game, the best chances for both teams came from set pieces. Cabrillo had free kicks in dangerous positions but twice the Rams’ wall did its job and blocked shots. Adrian Plascencia delivered some dangerous corners, but the Rams just couldn’t direct the ball into the goal.

The Rams created plenty of chances to go ahead in the second half, but it was Cabrillo who took the lead against the run of play. The ball was passed infield from the left and the Cabrillo attacker scuffed a shot which fell into the path of a teammate on the right who drove the ball hard and low underneath the goalkeeper.

Frustrations grew, but the Rams’ didn’t give up. Even at one goal down so late in the game, goalkeeper Cesar Hernandez was confident there would be a goal to celebrate.

“We always had faith in our attackers,” he said.

In stoppage time, Morales skipped past defenders on the right and shot the ball at near post, to beat the Cabrillo goalkeeper and take the game into overtime.

The Rams had chances to score near the end of overtime, but the game would be decided on what Paolo Carbone, head coach of Cabrillo described as “a lottery.” Carbone was proud of how his team reacted.

“Getting scored against in the last minute, most other teams would put their heads down…they found an extra motivation to stick together as a group and go to penalty kicks and win,” he said.

Eric Solberg, head coach for the Rams was disappointed with the game.

“We didn’t play well, we never got going,” he said. “I thought it was one of our worst games of the year in terms of what was at stake and our energy level.” Bell agreed. “We had no energy at all….we just weren’t ready to play,” he said.

Cesar Hernandez felt that the Rams were not focusing on Cabrillo.

“We weren’t living in the moment,” he said. “We were looking past them.”

Hernandez will be returning as a sophomore next season and he aims to improve on his first season. He plans on “not taking teams for granted” when the Rams go into games believing they will win.

James Bitter, Rams defender, felt there was room for improvement.

“We played fine, but you can’t play fine in the playoffs,” he said. “You have to play a lot better than that.”

Solberg has to look to next season now.

“We’ve got to bring the guys back, recruit some more and keep trying to grow,” he said. “As far as this season goes, it was a solid year, nothing more than that.”