ULV takes advantage of Beavers' inexperience
Campus Times
October 16, 1998
Winning with points to spare for the University of La Verne men's soccer
team was as clear as Saturday's skies, when it defeated a traditionally
weak Caltech Beaver team, 4-1.
"They [Caltech] know what they are doing, but they are very inexperienced,
because they have 17 freshmen," said head coach Mike Collins. "We
had some things we needed to work on and this was a perfect opportunity
to do that."
It did not take long for La Verne to get on the scoreboard, when freshman
forward Remy Rodriguez shot a goal on the assist from freshman forward Rudy
Contreras with 33:30 left in the first half.
Caltech seemed to have been playing lackadaisical and without ball control
throughout both halves, which turned out to be the basis of their demise.
This was obvious when Contreras booted a slicing pass from midfield
to Rodriguez, who shot a slow-rolling 20-yard goal past the over pursuing
Beaver goalie senior Brian Frazier.
"We did a good job looking for a pass and that is something that
we needed to do," said Collins.
Sixteen minutes later, sophomore middle fielder Mike Campopiano scored
on a soft shot to the left side of the goal.
The Campopiano goal would round out the scoring in the first half, but
Caltech had a great opportunity in the waning seconds to make the game 2-1.
Luckily, sophomore defense man Nate Swift saved a ball from rolling
into the right corner of the goal with inches to spare.
The Leopards picked up where they left off in the first half, as Rodriguez
scored for his second and final time on a penalty kick with 10 minutes having
expired from the clock.
The penalty kick was set up when Rodriguez was slide tackled in the
box in pursuit of a second goal. Fortunately, he managed to get the ball
past a diving Frazier for a 3-0 lead.
The Beavers would not be denied a goal because of the efforts of junior
sweeper Dale Parkes, who scored on a broken play and a snoozing ULV defense
with 28:37 left in the game.
"We did a good job [defensively], but we had a few breakdowns and
let downs, and that's where the goal came from," said Collins. "We
sometimes worry too much on the penetration [of the defense] vs. looking
for the pass."
Frazier did put up a courageous stand at his goalie position for the
Beavers following the Parkes goal, but the 3-1 score would only prove to
be added to by the Leopards one final time before the clock reached zero.
The third player to reach the backside of the Caltech net was junior
middle fielder Jorge Macias, who received a beautiful crossing pass from
junior middle fielder Ryan Graham.
The goal would come with 15:31 left in the game, as the Beavers made
no concerted effort to attack the Leopards' net.
Even though La Verne did win 4-1, its eyes were truly set on Wednesday's
match against long-time Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
(SCIAC) powerhouse Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
"We have Claremont coming up, and Claremont is the strongest team
in our conference," Collins said.
The Leopards, whose record going into the Claremont game was 4-3 overall
and 2-1 in SCIAC, played to their potential in an exhausting 2-1 loss to
the CMS.
"In the Claremont game, I think we finally played to our potential,
and that we have proven to ourselves that we have the capabilities to play
the best in conference," said assistant coach Cres Gonzalez.
La Verne's only goal came on a deflected corner kick by freshman forward
Art Pico with nearly eight minutes left to play.
"They [Claremont] thought they were going to roll over us, but
we still pushed it real hard and gave it our all," said freshman middle
fielder Adrian Gomez.
The Leopards play tomorrow at Redlands at 11 a.m.
