Alexandra de Leon
Staff Writer
With five injured players, the La Verne men’s water polo lost a match against the Chapman Panthers, 17-7, Saturday at the La Verne Aquatics Center.
The team came back with a 13-12 win against the Occidental Tigers, to break its two-game losing streak, Wednesday at Taylor Pool.
Senior defender Troy Williams managed to find the goal in the last minute of the fourth quarter to seal the Leopards’ win over the Tigers.
La Verne is now 2-3 in Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play and 6-15 overall.
Chapman dominated most of the game Saturday, both offensively and defensively, and the Leopards could not catch up.
“We definitely under performed,” head coach William Rodriguez said. “We’re missing five players and it showed with conditioning today, so I’m not happy with our performance.”
The Panthers took the lead in the first quarter, scoring four goals. La Verne junior driver Jared Hopley put the Leopards on the board with a goal in the last minute of the first to make the score, 4-1, to avoid a shutout.
Though Chapman continued to dominate, scoring three goals in the first few minutes of the second quarter by junior utility player Willis Allen and junior utility Garrett Aanestad to extend the lead, 7-1.
The Leopards managed to score a goal in the second quarter. Senior driver Bryan Jimenez got past the defenders, to cut the Panthers lead to 7-2.
The Panthers’ defense got too aggressive, as sophomore defender Jeff O’Brien got caught rolling a La Verne player and was ejected from the game.
It was a tough first half for the Leopards and the Panthers’ defense continued to stand strong throughout the game.
“I think we were a little slow, we got counter attacks all the time,” Hopley said. “We weren’t executing on offense.”
Allen scored the first goal in the third quarter. Sophomore utility player Makai DeNeve-Arnan answered back with a goal for the Leopards.
DeNeve-Arnan was then fouled and had the opportunity to score another goal, but missed the 2-meter penalty shot.
Hopley scored his second goal of the game for the Leopards at the end of the third making the score, 12-4.
The Leopards could not catch up by the fourth quarter , even with back-to-back goals in the third minute of the fourth by Jimenez.
Jimenez finished the game with three goals.
The Panthers scored five goals in the last quarter and sealed the win over the Leopards, 17-7.
Allen led the Panthers with six goals and sophomore Jon Hillman contributed three goals.
La Verne has several areas to work on before its upcoming game this week.
“I think more than anything it’s our conditioning, swimming up and down and staying with our guy, not making bad passes and a lot of turn over,” Jimenez said.
The Leopards hit the pool once again against the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens at 10 a.m. Saturday at La Verne Aquatics Center.
Alexandra de Leon can be reached at alexandra.deleon@laverne.edu.
Alexandra De Leon
