After defeating the Cabrillo College Seahawks on Friday 5-2, the Clovis Crush mens soccer team was riding high with an offense that was firing on all cylinders.
Unfortunately for the Crush, the tables were turned on Tuesday in the team’s 5-0 road loss to defending Central Valley Conference champion, the Fresno City College Rams.
And to make matters worse, coach Chad McCarty felt his team was out hustled and bullied by the experienced Rams.
“Credit to Fresno City, they were up to the challenge today. They were on their front foot, they won all the balls all the balls in the air, they won all the knockdowns and in a way, they kind of bullied us around the field,” McCarty said. “Our guys didn’t earn the right to play by at least matching their physicality, which put us behind the eight ball.”
That physical play by the Rams manifested itself with the Rams keeping possession of the ball for large spells throughout the game.
In the 11th minute, the Rams, who had spent several minutes building up an attack, found the back of the net for the first time when forward Michael Gonzalez crossed the ball to the near post where freshman midfielder and defender Gerado Mora slotted the ball home to give the Fresno City a 1-0 advantage.
The 43rd minute saw the Rams add on to their lead when a free kick from midfield played to the left corner, led to a cross from Sebastian Caballero to Michael Arrington.
Arrington knew what to do with it as he knocked the ball past Crush keeper Robby Rosas and into the net, 2-0 in favor of the Rams.
At halftime, the Rams held a 2-0 lead, but the Crush were still alive and had been able to establish a few more spells of possession and free kicks, but they proved to be unfruitful.
The Rams took a three-goal advantage in the 48th minute when Pedro Gomez received a cross from Joe Damian. With the ball under his feet inside the penalty box, Gomez found a sliver of space and put another ball past Rosas across the face of the goal.
Eduardo Segura and Arrington added two more goals in the 63rd and 75th minutes to push the lead to five and the Crush couldn’t put together enough passes to find any late opportunities to score.
All told, Clovis had just four shots throughout the match and all were handled by Rams keeper Evan Ghimenti.
The Crush now have an overall record of 6-3-1 and will get another chance to notch its first conference win in an away match against College of the Sequoias October 4.