Coming into the game last Saturday, Pomona-Pitzer was ranked 26th among Division-III schools, and La Verne ranked 30th. It was a perfect day for these two aspiring football teams to meet. At game-time, it was a dry 93 degrees and the San Bernardino mountains loomed surprisingly clear in the blue sky behind Merrit Field. The Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens and the La Verne Leos, two eager and determined undefeated teams, took the field ready to do battle.

Grayson Schaffer La Verne’s Terrence Williams chases the sprinting Sagehen Sanchez ’01

The final scenario was not so ideal for the Sagehens. Pomona-Pitzer suffered a bruising and frustrating 15-14 loss to the "bigger, stronger, faster" La Verne squad in what turned out to be a predominantly defensive game. By the time the fourth quarter came to a close, the Sagehens were a battered group, playing without both starting quarterback Teohua Sanchez ‘01 and starting tailback Jeremy Lim ’03.

One never would have guessed the final score after watching the first two plays of the game. Pomona-Pitzer took control early with a 57-yard kickoff return from youngster Michael Kirtman ’03 on the first play of the game. On the next play, Kirtman snared a 39-yard touchdown pass from Sanchez to cap off a 10-second scoring drive to give the Sagehens a 7-0 lead. That would be the easiest touchdown of the game for either team.

The second Sagehen touchdown came on a trick play — a 23-yard pass from Shawn Hochuli ‘00 to Matt Lacoss ’01 — which put Pomona-Pitzer up 14-7 with 7:27 left in the game.

With the exception of these two plays, the Pomona-Pitzer offense struggled to move the ball with any effectiveness. They turned the ball over five times and only converted 3/14 third downs. But their defense managed to maintain the lead through the first 59 minutes of the hour-long competition.

With four minutes to go in the game, the Hens started to lose control. Those last possessions of the game were a roller-coaster ride of turnovers and unbelievably quirky football. With four minutes remaining, Hens’ defensive back Matt Lacoss intercepted the ball on their own one yard-line in what appeared to be the nail in the coffin, owning a 7-point lead with four minutes to go.

The Sagehens had stopped what looked like the Leos’ final drive. Although this gave them horrible field position–worse than if the pass had been simply incomplete and the Leos had been out on downs–all the Sagehens needed to do was maintain possession for the final four minutes of the game, and they would have a victory.

But on the first play of what should have been the Sagehens’ final drive, the Leos forced a safety in the Pomona-Pitzer end-zone, giving them two-points and possession of the ball.

The Leos had one more chance. Again the Sagehen defense held them, and the Pomona-Pitzer offense took over on downs, this time with 3:09 remaining in the game. The crowd breathed a collected sigh of relief. Now all the Hens needed was to hold on to the ball for three minutes and the game would be theirs.

Three plays into what seemed to be the final possession of the game, the Leos intercepted quarterback Brian Ferrette’s ’01 pass as he was forced out of the pocket. The Leos were given one last chance. One too many.

With 1:48 left on the clock, the La Verne Leos pushed the ball up the field and scored on a six-yard touchdown pass to Kenny Fredieu ’00, to go up 15-14, leaving 30 seconds on the clock. The game was over. The Leos had won.

Nearly an hour after this seemingly fated touchdown, and only moments after the "hail to the Leos…" chant no longer echoed throughout Merrit Field, I stood aside as the paramedics strapped Pomona-Pitzer running back Jeremy Lim ’03 to a stretcher and carried him out of the Rains Center with a serious concussion diagnosis. It put the competition into perspective, as serious injuries often do in athletics at all levels. It was a game — players put their bodies on the line for it — and those players, win or lose, put up a great and admirable effort.