SUFC Team News #15 – Long Beach, CA
By Dan Minkoff
Shoreline United FC’s two leading scorers combined with two less likely sources of offense to key an important victory Sunday night and secure the team’s place in in UPSL Premier for another season.
Jhoel Sarraude scored his fifth of the season and Chris Martinez added his fourth to give Shoreline a 2-0 lead, while Skylar Brooks and Connor Borra each found the back of the net for the first time in a 4-2 victory over Independiente Los Angeles FC at Long Beach City College.
Independiente fell to 1-0-7 with 3 points and remains in 10th place in the 11-team SoCal North division. The win moved SUFC (3-1-4) up to seventh place. More importantly, Shoreline’s 10 points with two games remaining guarantees that it will not finish in the bottom two and be relegated to Division 1, from where it earned promotion in the spring season.
“Coming into this division being newly promoted, we had to set realistic expectations,” said Shoreline United co-captain and center defender Aaron Minkoff. “Although we always aim to win, one of our goals was to stay up [in Premier], especially after losing several of our players to college teams. We still have a few games left and we’re still focused on those, but very happy to say we’ll still be staying in Premier for the next season.”
College soccer season runs concurrently with UPSL’s fall season and those players are ineligible to play in UPSL until their school season ends. Because of that, Shoreline lost more than half of the starters from the promoted side, but Sarraude, Martinez, Brooks and Borra all joined for the fall season and have stepped up to fill the void.
Martinez opened the scoring in the 19th minute. He took a little slip pass from Sarraude, found himself free inside the penalty area and skillfully chipped the goalkeeper as he went to ground. Sarraude doubled the lead in the 33rd minute after collecting a crossfield ball from left back Zane Baumgardt. Shoreline seemingly took full control with five minutes left in the first half when Brooks chested in a cross by Borra. However, Bryant Guerrero poked home a loose ball in first half added time after a corner kick that Shoreline failed to clear and gave Independiente a glimmer of hope.
Borra scored the goal of the game in the 55th minute when he picked off a pass in midfield, dribbled forward and chipped the goalie from about 45 yards out to make the score 4-1.
“I [intercepted passes] like that a couple of times,” Borra said. “It was very easy to pick their pocket the way they played those flat passes. That time, I looked up, saw the goalie off his line and chipped him. It was an important goal because it helped us get the three points, and that keeps us moving forward.”
Independiente scored one minute later to cut the lead to 4-2, but Shoreline largely controlled the game from that point on. The visitors were reduced to 10 men when Rolando Raygoza tackled Minkoff from behind and was sent off in the 83rd minute.
Shoreline still has an outside shot at finishing in the top six, which would qualify for the league playoffs. However, they need to win their final two games and get a little help with other results going their way.
That starts this weekend when Shoreline United will make its longest road trip of the season. SUFC will travel to Coachella to take on league leader Coachella Football Club (date, time and field location still TBD). They return home for the final game of the fall season to face second-place SoCal United at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 9.
Vamos Shoreline! #ForTheLBC
