Stephanie Amaya
Staff Writer
The men’s soccer team lost to the Caltech Beavers, 4-1, on Saturday evening at Ortmayer Stadium.
Over 60 people came to watch the match unfold under the stadium’s bright lights.
In the opening of the match ceremony the Leopards had players escorted by a local team called La Verne Lazers Boys Soccer Club. After the ceremony, the boys soccer club stood on the sidelines with the athletic management staff helping in game time activities.
The Leopards came out slow in the first half, giving Caltech opportunities to capitalize on mistakes.
“The main strategy was to just play a complete 90 minute game with correct execution of what we had worked on…that didn’t happen,” head coach Trevor Persson said. “They scored when we didn’t.”
Persson noted that this game is just a bump in the road and knows the team’s potential. They hope to get better in the areas they struggled in and to learn from their execution, while looking ahead to their next game away against Chapman.
“We came out really slow, the other team were on us from the start of the game and overall we just played really bad in the first minutes,” senior defender Michael Duran said. “But in the last two games we played really well and this game we just kind of fell off a little bit.”
The Leopards had 12 attempted shots with five shots on goal and converted one goal. Junior midfielder Fernando Munoz Jr. was the only scorer for the Leopards, with an assist by senior defender and midfielder Kimson Martinez. Senior goalkeeper Hector Duenas-Peña led with four saves, with freshman goalkeeper Marcus Lewinsohn made two saves.
“We knew how (the Beavers) would start off…being an aggressive and a hardworking team, it was expected,” Duran said. “Ultimately it was up to us to match that intensity, but we failed in doing so.”
Caltech kept the Leopards under pressure throughout the game, being at the right places at the right time. A Leopards penalty gave the Beavers an opportunity to score their first goal in the first half by Caltech junior forward Ishaan Mantripragada in the 26th minute.
Around eight minutes later, Caltech senior midfielder Alex Gogola scored their second goal at the 33rd minute to put an end to the first half leading 2-0.
“I thought we gave a really good speech at halftime,” Persson said. “I thought we had some really great points, but at halftime we are just trying to reorganize and re-energize. Our message was that we need to get back to what we had been working on because we didn’t have a good first half. We weren’t making major changes, we were trying to get them back to being focused.”
After halftime, Caltech junior midfielder Etienne Casanova met the back of the net two more times within 10 minutes, to push the lead to 4-0.
“Honestly it took us a while to kind of build towards the end. I saw the last 15 minutes change in the team’s chemistry and after their first two goals,” junior forward Juan Martinez said. “We needed to learn how to readjust ourselves and build our morale up just to get back in the game, but there wasn’t enough time.”
In an attempt to make a late comeback, the Leopards found the back of the net in the closing minutes of the match. Munoz scored the first goal for the Leopards in the 83rd minute, with an assist by Martinez.
“What was going through my mind was just getting the ball and hoping to get another three goals in, overall I was ecstatic even though we were losing,” Munoz said. “Overall the first half stings, going down so early by two goals, but we tried to go into the second half trying to put two on the board, but only came out with one.”
With the loss the Leopards are now 2-1 in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and 3-6 season overall.
They return home and look to bounce back at 7 p.m. Saturday against Occidental.
Stephanie Amaya can be reached at stephanie.amaya@laverne.edu.
Stephanie Amaya is a senior communications major with a concentration in public relations and a staff photographer for the Campus Times. She has previously served as a staff writer.
Emily Casillas is a junior photography major with a concentration in sports photography. She is a staff photographer for both the Campus Times and La Verne Magazine, as well as La Verne Athletics. Her work can also be found at Shot2byEmily.
