by Enrique Gutiérrez
Staff Writer
On Wednesday night, the ball just would not go in – it seemed. Yet, with 10 minutes left to play, the University of La Verne women’s soccer team ran out of luck.
The Leopards fell to the Chapman University Panthers 1-0 on the grass of Ben Hines Field in a non-conference match.
It took confusion from the Leopards’ inside their penalty box for the Panthers (7-4) to score the game’s only goal.
It was Briana Benson, who sent the ball to kiss the net off a header after a pass from Aja Cordova from the left side of the box.
“They just got one lucky head, but I think we dominated most of the game,” said sophomore goalkeeper/forward Heather Cooper.
Even ULV head coach Wendy Zwissler seemed to be content with her team’s performance.
“It was an even game, it was hard fought and it could have gone either way,” she said. “They just got the lucky rebound right at the right place.”
“This is our best game yet that we’ve played,” Cooper said. “We played with a lot of heart and a lot of intensity. They did not think that we would do this well.”
The Leopards (8-7) created good opportunities throughout the game, but could not finish any of them.
“I didn’t know how well they were doing,” said Chapman head coach Eddie Carrillo. “But they were definitely tougher than I thought.”
Prior to that game, La Verne defeated the Whittier Poets on Saturday.
Junior midfielder Kelly Black scored the game’s winning goal, assisted by sophomore midfielder Giselle Ortega.
The 1-0 win moved the Leopards to 5-1 in SCIAC play.
“[By the score] it looked like it was close, but Whittier really wasn’t in the game the whole time,” said Zwissler.
La Verne will travel to Claremont tomorrow morning to play the Athenas at 11. That will be the rematch of last week’s showdown.
“With CMS we were behind 3-0 and came back and beat them 4-3,” Zwissler said. “I think we’ve shown that we’re among the strong contenders in league.”
