Men's Soccer Drops to 1-2 on Season, Loses Crucial SCIAC Matches to CMS, Redlands
By Joey Richards
Sports Associate

In a week that featured two of the biggest games of the season, the Pomona-Pitzer men’s soccer team suffered crushing defeats at the hands of two SCIAC front-runners.

On Saturday, September 28, the Sagehens fell to cross-campus rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 3-1, and on Wednesday, October 2, lost by the identical score of 3-1 to Redlands.

These games were viewed as virtually must-win contests by P-P in the race for the 2002 SCIAC title. Coming into the season, the conference was seen as a three-team race between these rivals. After this pivotal week of play, CMS stands at 3-0, Redlands 2-1, and Pomona-Pitzer 1-2.

In the CMS game, the Stags got on the board early in the first half on a penalty kick. Sagehen goalkeeper Jay Schneider ’04 was called for the infraction when he inadvertently took out a CMS player inside the box.

CMS would later take a 2-0 lead on a goal scored directly after a P-P giveaway on their own end.

The Hens finally got on the board in the 73rd minute when Mario Velez ’04 took possession of the ball in traffic and pounded it into the back of the net. However, Velez would re-aggravate a hamstring injury shortly after notching the goal. Velez has been out for a majority of the season with a torn hamstring.

The Stags would hold onto their slim 2-1 lead despite being out-played by P-P in the final minutes, and added the capper with just seconds remaining in the ball game.

Versus Redlands, the Sagehens obviously came out flat, still reeling from the disappointing loss to CMS.

The Bulldogs scored all three of their goals in the first 25 minutes of the game, and played solid defense for the remainder of the game to seal the 3-1 victory.

P-P’s lone goal came off the foot of Liam Patrick ’03 in the second half.

“The frustrating thing is that you know you should put these teams away, but there’s problems and you just can’t figure out what they are,” said forward Adam Dewey ’05.

Now P-P must refocus its attention and put this disastrous week behind them. The first test is Saturday, when the Sagehens host La Verne at 11 a.m.

“The good thing is that it’s still possible for us to win conference. We pretty much have to win every game for the rest of the season,” said forward Scott Coleman ’05.

P-P has dug itself a hole this week, but there’s still time to regroup and climb out.