by Cherryl F. Cercado
Staff Writer
The sun was hiding behind the clouds last Saturday, but the women’s soccer team shone brightly by defeating the Whittier Poets, 4-0, finishing the season in third place in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
“I thought we had an advantage [going into the game] because we’re third and they’re in sixth place,” said Wendy Zwissler, women’s soccer head coach. “It was a matter of keeping our spirits up, to just keep playing.
“Sometimes when you play a team that’s lower in standing and it’s at the end of the season, you tend to slack, but we didn’t,” she said.
The Leos had control of the ball most of the time and when the Poets were able to take the ball, La Verne would take it right back. When Whittier tried to make a goal, it was to no avail because junior goalie Tiffany Hall was right there ready and willing to stop it and Amber Hall seemed like an expert by using her headers to steal the ball from Whittier.
La Verne’s Lisa Thomas scored the first goal off a corner kick. She also scored the second goal for the team when there was only about five minutes left on the first half. Following Thomas’ goals, Jacqui Zwissler scored the Leos third goal, also off a corner kick.
At the beginning of the second half, Jenny Zwissler scored the final goal for La Verne.
“It wasn’t one of my best games but I think I played well overall,” Jenny Zwissler said.
“We had a lot of opportunities to score that we missed, but we played well,” said Jacqui Zwissler, sophomore halfback.
The season was the best one that women’s soccer ever had, according to Coach Zwissler.
“I thought we could’ve pulled out a second or a first place. We’re one point out of second place and we’ve finished the season 9-3 in SCIAC and that never happened before.”
Zwissler’s team philosophy of vision, cooperation and tolerance, along with a strong second half of the season, worked. Not only was their goal to match last year’s finish met, they finished on step up in third place.
“I think being as young as we are, considering we have nine sophomores, six freshmen and one junior, I’d tell SCIAC to beware. We’ll be back,” she said.
Women’s soccer overall record is 10-6-1.
