by Damien Alarcon
Assistant Arts & Entertainment Editor
A huge, dark cloud has hovered over the men’s soccer team since it began league play in late September.
On Wednesday, that cloud traveled with the team to Occidental as they fell to the Tigers in a 2-1 loss. The Leopards dropped to 2-8 overall and 0-5 in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC).
“Honestly, I don’t have any more excuses,” said Shayon Jalayer, La Verne head coach. “We played well and are right there for a win, but we can’t get the monkey off our backs.”
Junior midfielder Mike Campopiano scored the match’s first goal in the 21st minute, bringing confidence to the Leopards. Unfortunately, that was the only goal La Verne produced the entire match.
Occidental’s Liam Walker and Scott Ko scored in the 31st and 39th minutes, respectively. The Tigers were then able to fight off ULV’s offensive surge, which had opportunities to tie the match.
“We just had bad luck, we didn’t score when we needed to,” said senior defender Jorge Macias. “We just don’t put teams away.”
In the second half, sophomore striker Ryan Rodriguez came close to scoring when his shot hit the post.
Freshman defender John Helmer said, “We know we are a good team. We just have bad breaks.”
