By Tom Ignudo

Thanks to goalie Bryam Gordillos, the DCCC Phantoms prevailed over Lehigh Carbon Community College in a 3-1 victory Sept. 15.

Despite not working cohesively in the first half, Gordillos’ play as goalie held Carbon scoreless until late in the second half.

“We had a slow start at the beginning,” Gordillos said. “Then we came back at the second half and that’s how we got the win. I think we finally started talking to each other and got confident.”

After a half filled with missed opportunities by both teams, strong wing play allowed the Phantoms to pull away from Carbon.

Yanni Bouikidis assisted Muad Ali, who ended the Phantoms’ drought and put them ahead 1-0.

Shortly there after, Ali set-up Francis Obeng at the penalty line, which gave the Phantoms a comfortable 2-0 lead.

“Together everyone achieves more,” said Ryan Griffith, head coach of the Phantoms. “We kept our shape at that

point. In the first half we didn’t keep our shape at all. We had our shape, we had 3-5 team going; in the first half we didn’t have any shape the ball was flowing by itself. In the second half we let the ball do the work.”

Unfortunately for the Phantoms, Carbon answered with a powerful goal, making it 2-1 midway through the second

half.But late in the second half, Bouikidis booted in a goal, which sealed a 3-1 victory for the Phantoms.

Halfway through the second half, Vernon Dreyer of the Phantoms took a nasty ball to the face, which forced him to sit out the rest of the game.

Dreyer said he couldn’t hear out of his right ear, so the trainer held him out of the game because of precautionary reasons.

“As far as working on what we did in the second half we just need to follow up on that,” Griffith said. “We played well the first 10 minutes. We didn’t continue the entire 45 with the scheme we came out with in the second half. We just got to continue that and keep our shape, and communication is key.”

The Phantoms followed up their win with two consecutives losses to Harrisburg Area Community College and Bucks County Community College.

They’ll look to establish a winningstreak against Carbon Oct. 1.