Rosario Rios-Aguilar '08 scored a team-high 15 points, but Whittier College lost 75-65 to Occidental College in Los Angeles, Calif., on January 31.  The loss drops the Poets' record to 7-10 overall and 3-4 in SCIAC play.

Rios-Aguilar finished with a team-high eight rebounds as well.  Six of those rebounds came on the offensive end.  Marie Vodicska '11 hit a pair of three-pointers and finished with 12 points.  She also pitched in with three assists and two steals.  Kourtney Zilbert '11 filled the stat sheet with eleven points, five rebounds, five assists and four steals. 

Occidental (13-5, 5-2) was led by Brianne Brown who posted a double-double with 18 points and a game-high ten rebounds.  Stephanie Babij was the game's leading scorer with 20 points and grabbed six rebounds.  Stacie Roshon finished with 15 points, five rebounds and three steals.

The Poets got into a hole early as Occidental torched the nets shooting 63% from the field in the first half.  The Tigers took a 17-6 lead seven minutes into the game.  They led by as many as 16 in the half, before the Poets cut the deficit to 13 points at the break.  Whittier struggled from the field, going 9-for-30 (30%) in the half.

Occidental carried their momentum out of the locker room, scoring the first five points of the second half.  They extended their lead to 19 at the 16:42 mark.  The Poets chipped away at Tiger advantage, and with 2:26 left in the game, the Poets trailed by just nine.  They got as close as eight points, but Occidental was solid at the charity stripe, closing the game out by making nine of their last ten free throws and leaving the game with the ten-point victory.

The Poets are in action again on February 2, when they host the California Institute of Technology.  The game tips off in the Graham Athletics Center at 5:00pm.