Lady kickers end without postseason
Campus Times
November 6, 1998
La Verne played its last soccer game Nov. 1 against UC Santa Cruz.
La Verne's Natalee Wiebe (#20) contends for control of the ball with Kelly
Garcia (#12) of UC Santa Cruz. Sixteen seconds into the first half of play,
Santa Cruz's Danielle Pellicano scored the first goal. In the second half,
after a penalty, another Santa Cruz goal was scored by Anne Zuparko. The
Leopards lost the game to the Banana Slugs, 2-0.
The season ended last weekend for the women's soccer team with a nonconference
loss to UC Santa Cruz on Sunday. However, the Leopards managed to fight
for a win over Whittier the day before.
The team began last weekend with a dominating victory over visiting
Whittier, 2-1. Even though the score did not show it, the Leopards kept
solid defensive and offensive efforts the entire game, kicking a total of
23 shots compared to Whittier's nine.
Freshman center midfielder Giselle Ortega scored both goals for La Verne
in the fourth and 76th minutes of the match while the Poets scored from
a penalty kick by forward Kelly Kaitanian late in the game (79:00).
Sunday's game, however, began as a nightmare. The UC Santa Cruz Banana
Slugs left a wet trail over the Leopards within the first minute of the
game. Danielle Pellicano of Santa Cruz scored 16 seconds into the match,
the first of two goals for the Slugs.
"After the wake up call, we played awesome," said sophomore
forward Rachel Lieberman. "Overall, we played good, but, unfortunately,
they capitalized on our few mistakes."
Santa Cruz scored their second goal by Anne Zupanko off a penalty kick
near the beginning of the second half (50:40).
The luckless Leopards did not qualify for a playoff berth, ending the
season with an overall record of 9-8-1 and 7-4-1 in SCIAC. Although the
season is finished for La Verne, conference champion Cal Lutheran still
has a few games ahead of them in the postseason.
Favorably, the Leopards are a very young team with seven freshman and
five sophomores on a roster which fields 14 total players. The squad will
be losing only two players from graduation in seniors Alicia Raygoza and
Deanna Kodama.
