by J.R. Gonsalves
Staff Writer
A dry and patchy field was harassed by the cleated feet of the University of La Verne women’s soccer team on Saturday, when it hosted Redlands. The Leopards started off slow and never really recovered but still had enough in their arsenal to win, 3-1.
“They made more defensive errors than we did,” said head coach Wendy Zwissler.
La Verne, which is 5-0, did not pass well against Redlands (1-2), but they had a lot of solid shots on goal. The Leopards outshot Redlands, 17-13.
“This was a big win, because we are still undefeated,” said junior forward Angel Mejico, who blasted the second goal of the match. She also added two assists.
“It wasn’t one of the best games that we won, but a win is a win,” said senior sweeper Amber Hall.
“They were young and aggressive,” said Zwissler of Redlands.
“We played flat,” said Mejico. “We played to their style of soccer.”
The Leopards started slow but scored first at the 1:34 mark in the first half, when freshman defenseman Kelly Black took a pass from Mejico and snuck it by the left side of the Redlands goal.
The Leopards scored again in the first half. The second goal came off of the foot of Mejico at the 32:10 mark of the match. The assist went to freshman midfielder Katie Zwissler.
In the first half, the Leopards played solid defense. Redlands attacked continuously, and the Leopards seldom had a chance to take a break on their side of the field.
The Leopards added their third and final goal at the 79:46 mark of the second period. It came on a pass from Mejico to Zwissler. Ten minutes later, Redlands scored its final goal of the match.
Wednesday, La Verne traveled to Thousand Oaks to take on conference rival Cal Lutheran. The Regals are No. 18 in the nation.
The team came up short, 3-1, in a tight match. The Regals took a 1-0 lead into halftime, but Zwissler took advantage of a Cal Lutheran turnover in its own zone and scored 27 seconds into the second half to tie the match 1-1.
However, Kim Holeman scored her second goal of the day off a Lara Philby cross with 37:29 remaining in the match.
Holly Roepke added a goal about five minutes later to give Cal Lutheran its final goal.
The loss moves La Verne to 5-1 overall and 2-1 in SCIAC.
Journalism operations manager at the University of La Verne. Production manager and business manager of the Campus Times.
