Johnson gets natural hat trick; Lagunas has four assists in 6-1 rout

Sadiki Johnson scored a natural hat trick (3 straight goals) in a nine-minute stretch of the first half on Friday night and Celso Lagunas had four assists as SBCC broke out of its offensive slump with a convincing 6-1 men's soccer rout over Moorpark.

The Vaqueros (8-5-3, 3-4-1 WSC North) had managed just three goals in the previous five games. They scored three in the first 30 minutes on Friday and led 4-0 at halftime.

Moorpark, which only lost 1-0 to the Vaqueros on Oct. 16, fell to 3-10-5 and 2-4-2.

Johnson, a 6-2 forward from Westbury, N.Y., was one of nine Vaqueros honored on "Sophomore Night" in the final home game of the regular season.

Ameyawu Muntari, another sophomore forward from Ghana, opened the scoring in the 21st minute, streaking up the middle and taking a cross from Andrew Wakamiya for his team-leading seventh goal.

Less than five minutes later, defender Neil Gillies made a nice long lead pass to Lagunas and he had a 2-on-1, sliding the ball to a wide-open Johnson for an easy score. At the 29:07, it looked like an instant replay as Nathan Iunes delivered a long ball up the left side to Lagunas and he dribbled ahead, then crossed it to Johnson, who made it 3-0.

At the 34-minute mark, Johnson booted a pass into the box and a Moorpark defender deflected it into his goal. Johnson got credit for the score since he was the one who kicked it and the Vaqueros were up 4-0.

"I just kept working hard and staying positive," said Johnson, who had two goals in 12 games coming into Friday's match. "I've been making those runs in all my other games, so it was bound to come. Like coach said, everything went well for us tonight.

"Our goals were high quality and everyone played great. Going into next week, this will give us a lot of momentum."

Pedro Ruiz entered the game in the 50th minute and found the net at 60:31. Muntari delivered a cross-the-field corner kick to Lagunas and he passed it to Ruiz, who beat the keeper to the bottom right corner, making it 5-0.

In the 71st minute, Lagunas sent a corner kick to a wide-open Joel Ramirez Vega and he scored from close range for the sixth goal. Moorpark's Alexis Garcia stained the clean sheet with a goal at 74:48.

SBCC outshot the Raiders 16-10 and doubled them up in shots on-goal, 8-4.

"The boys have played well for weeks on end," said Vaquero assistant coach Dylan Murphy. "It's never been an issue of the quality. When you have three or four of your good strikers having difficulty scoring at the same time, wins are going to be difficult to get. We survived and had some really good defensive performances that kept us in playoff contention.

"Celso was great tonight, Sadiki was great tonight. Pete (Pedro Ruiz) played well off the bench. I'm not surprised to see us score so many goals, it's been a long time coming."

The Vaqueros are currently in playoff position as they're ranked 11th in power points in Southern California.

 The Vaqueros are fourth in the WSC North with 10 points, one shy of third-place L.A. Mission. Santa Barbara will play its last two games on the road – Tuesday vs. Mission at El Cariso Park in Sylmar at 2 p.m. and Friday at Santa Monica in a 1 p.m. contest.