Justin Ries
Staff Writer
The La Verne men’s soccer team beat Russell Sage, 4-0, in a match Saturday at Ortmayer Stadium.
The Leopards had the opening kickoff and an early chance to get a goal, but it was called offsides. There were not many other opportunities early on as both teams had a slow start. The defense on both sides was not allowing many clean passes to get through.
La Verne’s strategy going into the game was not to force passes and play out from the defenders up to the forwards.
La Verne started to pick up the pressure by creating good scoring opportunities but kept coming up short. These chances finally led the Leopards to their first goal of the game, scored by senior forward Diego Soto and assisted by senior forward Juan Manzano.
Manzano contributed to three of La Verne’s four goals during the game.
“I always want to be on the ball, and I just want to help distribute the ball and find the back of the net,” Manzano said.
Graduate student forward Isaiah Barber went down with an injury, and the subs were tested early.
“Guys that really haven’t played a big part just yet got minutes and kept the goals going, and continued to put pressure, so that shows our depth,” Drew Rea, head men’s soccer coach, said.
The Gators picked up the pressure late into the first half and dominated possession, creating chances for themselves.
In the second half, it started as a back-and-forth contest, then La Verne took over.
A foul by the Gators led to a header goal in the bottom left corner of the net from freshman midfielder Tyler Valdez, assisted by Manzano.
The next goal came 12 minutes later by Manzano and assisted by Valdez, who did a lot of dirty work to get the pass to Manzano.
“I saw a little gap through the defense, and slipped him in well enough, and he got in the end of it,” Valdez said.
The next goal was from a penalty kick by freshman midfielder Kai Gonzalez.
With the win, La Verne moved to an overall record of 2-0-1. They had tied Division II Westmont, 2-2, Sept. 1 and beat George Fox 3-0, Sept. 3.
“So to get a result there at Westmont College, it shows right away how far we’ve come and then kind of building off that, and keep shutouts,” Rea said.
Next, they travel to Texas, to play Trinity in San Antonio on Friday and Southwestern in Georgetown on Sunday.
“Clean sheets give us a really good base on what we want to do, and if we can do that against these teams right now, then we feel like we can do it against anyone,” senior defender Joshua McCowan said.
Even with this confidence, they still look to clean up some things before going out to Texas.
“It is still a work in progress, different formation, different ideas but same idea in terms of keep the ball on the ground and build from there,” Rea said.
Justin Ries can be reached at justin.ries@laverne.edu.
Justin Ries is a junior journalism major with a concentration in broadcast journalism, and is a staff writer for the Campus Times.
