Soccer: Fresno City women aim for breakthrough in state final four

They meet again.

Fresno City College and Cerritos will meet for the third time in a year – once again at the junior college women’s soccer state final four.

The Rams (19-1-4) and Falcons (21-0-3) play at 10 a.m. Friday at De Anza College in Cupertino. The other semifinal pits Rio Hondo (16-1-4) and Modesto (18-4-2) at 1:30 p.m.

Fresno City and Cerritos met in last season’s championship semifinal as the three-time defending state champion Falcons defeated the Rams 2-1 in overtime in Walnut.

The Falcons tied the score with a goal in the 83rd minute and then added the winner in the 110th against Fresno City. Cerritos defeated Santiago Canyon 2-0 in the title game.

Fresno City and Cerritos met earlier this season in Livermore and tied 2-2.

Rams coach Oliver Germond said a loss to Taft in Central Valley Conference play helped his team refocus “and changed our team for the better.”

“People say it’s good to lose, and I agree to some point,” he said. “That loss made us change how we’ve played and woke us up a little bit.”

Rams forward Yesseniah Delgadillo leads the team in goals (11) and assists (9), and forward Melody Harris has 10 goals.

Goalkeeper Amanda Raymond has led Fresno City to 16 of its wins and has 12 shutouts. She was in goal when the Rams faced the Falcons earlier in the season and surrendered both goals and made nine saves.

Raymond, who has allowed just six goals this season, comes into the semifinal match with three straight shutouts in the NorCal Regional to help the Rams advance to the state final four – beating Solano 4-0, Taft 3-0 and Folsom Lake 4-0.

“We’re executing like we need to,” midfielder Kelly Garzon said. “We’ve been really trying to touch up on many things we’re working on. Watching film is helping us and overall it’s the little stuff that we needed to fix.”

The Rams are averaging 2.8 goals a game, while giving up just 0.25.

“We just have to play our game,” Germond said. “Our girls have been very disciplined. We’re just peaking at the right time.”

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Soccer: Fresno City women aim for breakthrough in state final four."