Bellevue College’s men’s soccer team came out ahead in a battle of attrition over Spokane, prevailing 2-1.
Bellevue took an abnormally early lead by putting a point on the board 30 seconds into the game. A run on the left side from Dohee Kim resulted in a deflection to Jordan Cormea, who faced an open net and fired a shot in.
“It was nice because it was so early,” Cormea said. “We’d been struggling a bit with the tie last week so it was good.”
Unfortunately, the referee began to factor into the game from the start, and continued to be more influential in setting the pace of the game than the actual players. The first card he doled out was a red to Kim for unsportsmanlike behavior and ended up dealing eight more yellow cards after that.
“Ridiculous. It was a poorly reffed game,” Cormea said.
Kim’s tackle at first did not appear hard enough to be worth a card. He didn’t seem too concerned about the ejection though.
“He hit my face first so I tackled,” Kim said.
With a man down due to the red card, BC allowed a few dangerous attacks early in the first half. Those attacks culminated in a goal by Matt Miller of Spokane in the 13th minute.
The game stayed in a 1-1 tie for almost the rest of the first half, but BC managed another goal in the 43rd minute just before halftime. This time it was Davis Smith with a penalty kick that bounced off the goalpost and into the net. The teams then went into halftime at 2-1.
The Bulldogs started on the attack when the clock moved again, taking a few more shots before a major shift in the game. Josh Strasser from BC took a chance in the 49th minute from outside the box, but the ball went right to the goalkeeper. Cormea almost put another tally on the score sheet, but the ball was deflected by a sliding defender and made it just over the net.
The majority of the cards were for “talking,” which is a new focal point for Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges (NWAACC) referees. The league is cracking down on foul language, even when that language is directed at the player who used it. In all, at least four cards were dealt for some variation of “talking.” Despite the increasing intensity of the game after the initial red card, only four more cards were given for physical play.
One of those cards was shown to Spokane goalkeeper Hugo Sanchez in the 55th minute for a last man foul, which signaled the competitive end of the match. The card was the first of the game for Spokane, but they would go on to collect a total of four throughout the game. A few more shots were taken on each side after the red was thrown, but after both teams were reduced to 10 men, the game became more defensive.
Bellevue will be taking on Olympic on the road on Wednesday Oct 24 and play against Highline at home on the Saturday October 24.