Orange Coast Shuts Down Streaking Cypress, 2-1

Cypress entered its Orange Empire Conference women’s soccer game against Orange Coast Tuesday with an impressive list of credits.

The Chargers had not lost a conference game since November, 1991. Cypress was 42-0-2 in that time. Cypress had not lost a regular-season game either and was 59-0-4 in that span.

But both streaks are things of the past because Orange Coast got second-half goals from Shannon Donegan and Keri Lawson and beat host Cypress, 2-1.

Orange Coast (9-1-2, 5-0), ranked third in the state, takes a one-game lead over top-ranked Cypress (12-1-2, 5-0) halfway through the conference race.

“I thought we were the better of the two teams coming in because of our depth,” OCC Coach Barbara Bond said. “But Cypress is a good team and it’s hard to beat a team with a streak like theirs.”

The key play came when Colby Morgan, Cypress’ leading scorer, had a penalty kick with about a minute left after OCC was called for a hand ball. But OCC goalie Kevyn Reekes (10 saves) dived to her left to knock the ball away.

“It was total concentration,” Reekes said. “I stood on the line and watched her set it up and she gave it away.”

OCC outplayed Cypress for much of the first half but neither team scored. OCC finally got a goal when Lawson scored from the left side 12 minutes into the second half. Cypress, which applied great pressure in the second half, tied it when Jen Salerno controlled a rebound and scored with about six minutes left in the half.

But Orange Coast came back about a minute later when Donegan, with an assist from Lawson, scored from in front of the net.