SportsFootball

Leopards lose third straight game

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps’ defensive back Victor Bunce tackles La Verne senior wide receiver Jonathan Lilly in the end zone in the fourth quarter of the game Saturday at Zinda Field. Lilly’s touchdown effort in the fourth quarter was ruled incomplete and the Leopards lost 40-24. La Verne will play at Whittier at 5 p.m. Saturday. / photo by Helen Arase
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps’ defensive back Victor Bunce tackles La Verne senior wide receiver Jonathan Lilly in the end zone in the fourth quarter of the game Saturday at Zinda Field. Lilly’s touchdown effort in the fourth quarter was ruled incomplete and the Leopards lost 40-24. La Verne will play at Whittier at 5 p.m. Saturday. / photo by Helen Arase

Annabel Secaida
Staff Writer

The football team faced a 40-24 loss Saturday against the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags under the Zinda Field lights.

The Leopards are 1-3 overall and 0-2 in the Southern Cali­fornia Intercollegiate Confer­ence.

“Our game plan was to get back to the basics, run the football well and stop the run,” head football coach Chris Krich said.

“We didn’t do a great job at executing our game plan and there were definitely mistakes.” he said.

The Leopards led the Stags in passing with a total of 355 yards, but fell behind with 75 rushing yards compared to 312 for the Stags.

The La Verne defense held the Stags to just 235 passing yards.

The Stags scored first, early in the game and the Leopards answered back with a dominating pass.

Junior quarterback William Livingston threw a 74-yard pass to senior wide receiver Jon Lilly, resulting in a touchdown, tying the game at seven.

With the Leopards down by six, sophomore defensive back Connor Truhitte intercepted a pass from junior quarterback Trey Reynolds, returning the ball for 48 yards to the CMS 22-yard line.

Junior running back Travis Sparks-Jackson rushed for 14 yards resulting in a touchdown.

La Verne then took a 14-13 lead at 8:18 into the second quarter.

Sparks-Jackson finished with 47 rushing yards.

“I feel upset and frustrated,” Sparks-Jackson said. “We need to just work together as a team and not fall over and to just keep fighting.”

The Stags answered back as freshman running back Andrew Segre rushed for 16-yards and scored two minutes before halftime, taking the lead, 20-14.

CMS finished with 312 rushing yards.

With the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps defense holding back La Verne, the Stags regained the ball again.

This resulted in two more touchdowns, 33-14, with the Leopards still behind.

The Leopards attempted to get on the scoreboard once more, late in the fourth quarter.

With a pass Livingston to Lilly for 10 yards, but it was not enough, resulting in a Leopards’ loss of 40-24.

Lilly caught 11 of the 25 passes from Livingston and racked up a total of 227 yards scoring two touchdowns.

Livingston went 25-of-37 with 355-yards.

However, the Livingston and Lilly connection was not enough to defeat the Stags.

“We wanted to establish the run and control the line of scrimmage,” Lilly said. “We just gotta look at the mistakes we made and fix them during practice so we don’t make the same mistakes again.”

On the defensive side, La Verne led the game with 76 tackles and two sacks by junior defensive lineman Michael Frias and junior linebacker Stephen Prescott.

Senior defensive back Manuel Macias led the defense with nine tackles.

With five more games left in the conference, the Leopards will move forward from Saturday’s loss and focus on their next opponent.

“We’re facing a lot of adversity and we’re not in the spot where we thought we would be, but the only place we can go is up,” Krich said.

The Leopards will next face the Whittier Poets at 5 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Field.

Annabel Secaida can be reached at annabel.secaida@laverne.edu.

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