The ULV football team fights hard to break its season-long losing streak.
Yessenia Romo
Staff Writer
The La Verne football team played a close game last Saturday against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps but was ultimately unable to achieve its first win of the season.
Although the Leopards played well in front of an enthusiastic home crowd, the game ended with a score of 17-7.
La Verne had plenty of opportunities to score during the game, but were not able to take advantage of them.
“All the plays were there,” said Nicholas Weeks, junior linebacker after the game finished, “We just need the execution.”
La Verne’s only touchdown came in the first three minutes of play, and most of the Leopards missed opportunities came in the second half of the game, in which the team had a few incomplete passes in the end zone.
The officials called two touchdown plays out of bounds in the fourth quarter, ending a great run by the Leopards.
“We didn’t execute in the red zone,” said Cedric Ho, junior wide receiver.
La Verne had three chances in the red zone throughout the game, but were not able to score.
The team thinks the next step in order to win is to make those plays.
La Verne’s only touchdown was in the first quarter when Ho caught a pass from senior quarterback Anthony Andre.
ULV’s touchdown was quickly met with retribution with a touchdown in the same quarter by CMS junior quarterback Scott Yingling.
CMS kicker Chet Corcos made a field goal in the second quarter, increasing the score to 10-7, and the game continued with that score until the fourth quarter.
CMS was quick to recover a La Verne fumble with three minutes left in the game, and the play led to a touchdown by senior running back D.J. Lillard.
The ULV team also incurred damage to their roster when linebacker Ryan Baranek suffered an ankle injury, and had to leave the game during the second quarter.
La Verne was able to get near scoring again in the last minute, but a CMS interception impeded them from scoring.
La Verne had more than three times the passing yards that CMS had.
“I think we are going to regroup and pull it together next week,” said Tyler Cantu, junior free safety.
“We have to take how we practice and turn it into the game,” said Dakota Bates, freshman linebacker.
The team is now 0-4 for the season and 0-2 in the conference.
Their next game will be at 7 p.m. Saturday at Pomona-Pitzer, which has not won a conference game this season.
The Leopards will then travel to Occidental for a 3 p.m. game on Oct. 24.
Yessenia Romo can be reached at yessenia.romo@laverne.edu.
