photo by Jenna Campbell
Justin Smith (No. 21) of the University of La Verne (5-7-3, 4-5 SCIAC) defended the goal against conference-leading Pomona-Pitzer (8-4, 7-1 SCIAC). The Sagehens defeated the Leopards, 4-0. ULV continues SCIAC action tomorrow against Occidental.
A battle with the top team in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is no easy task and Pomona-Pitzer showed exactly why it is the top team in conference by blanking the Leopards, 4-0, in a SCIAC game Saturday at Ben Hines Field.
With the loss the Leopards record falls to 5-7-3 overall, but more importantly the loss drops their SCIAC record to 4-5 and the team into fifth place in the standings.
“Our goal all season has been to be top four in conference,” head coach Cres Gonzalez said. “In order to do this we have to beat one of the top three teams in the conference in one of our remaining games.”
The Sagehens offense proved to be too much for the Leopard defense as they scored the four goals on seven shots in the first 40 minutes of the game.
Two of the goals though came on lucky bounces and a couple of Leopard mistakes.
Leading the way for the Sagehens was senior forward Scott Coleman, who scored two of the four goals.
The other goals for Pomona were scored by midfielders Joey Greenwald and Mario Velez.
“As a team we cannot break down and allow those type of goals,” Gonzalez said. “We must give a 100 percent every play and we have to convince ourselves that we have the ability to beat the top teams.”
In the game, the Leopard offense only managed seven shots against Pomona’s stingy defense and allowed the Sagehens to remain in their territory most of the game.
Both goalies recorded one save each, as there were only 14 total shots taken on goal between both schools.
“As a group we have been playing well defensively,” sophomore forward Steven Lane said. “Offensively we need to start scoring some goals, we need to score goals early and often to finish off the teams.”
La Verne was scheduled to face defending SCIAC Champion University of Redlands Wednesday, but the game was cancelled due to unsafe weather conditions.
A make-up game between the two teams was held Thursday in Redlands. However, results were not available at press time.
Before the game, Redlands (9-3-1 overall) was 6-2 in conference in fourth place.
The Leopards are back in action tomorrow morning when they travel to Los Angeles to face off with the Tigers of Occidental College in an important SCIAC game.
Following these two important games, the Leopards will only have three games remaining to move up in the conference standings.
Jonathan Corral can be reached at jcorral@ulv.edu.