WHITTIER, Calif. - Junior wide receiver Josh Ollison had five catches for 116 yards and three touchdowns but it wasn't enough as Occidental reclaimed The Shoes for the second consecutive year with a 44-23 win over the Poets on Saturday afternoon in front of a crowd of 1191 at Memorial Stadium.

With the win, the Tigers (7-2, 5-1 SCIAC) have evened the series at 33-33 since the two rivals have been playing for The Shoes. Occidental holds the overall advantage in the series at 52-48-2 which dates back to 1907.

Occidental struck with two touchdowns on their first two possessions. Jason Haller finished two 59-yard drives with runs of four yards and one yard, respectively, to give the Tigers a 14-0 lead at the 3:23 mark of the first quarter.

The Poets (3-6, 1-5 SCIAC) answered with an 11-play, 50-yard, drive that ate up over seven minutes on the clock to pull within one score at 14-7. Ollison hauled in his first touchdown of the afternoon on a fourth and 15 play from the 26-yardline. WC converted two fourth downs on the drive which includes the 26-yard scoring play from Alesana Sausau to Ollison.

Occidental ended the first half of a 17-0 run to take a 31-7 lead into halftime. The Tigers had three possessions in the second half and all resulted in points.

OXY needed only 58 seconds at the start of the third quarter to add to its lead as Scott Saunders found Jason Lehman on third and four for the 59-yard scoring strike. Whittier was forced to punt on its ensuing possession but a fumble by Haller ended Occidental's next drive and set up WC's next score.

On the first play from scrimmage after the fumble the Poets ran a reverse pass that saw wide receiver Giovanni Stanley hook up with Ollison for a 39-yard touchdown. The Poets' tacked on two points on a Pete Mitchell to Garrett Carr conversion to make the score 38-15.

The Tigers added six points on a Neil Martin 31-yard field goal in the third quarter and a Joshua Mun 28-yarder in the fourth to stretch its lead to 44-15 with 4:54 to play in the game.

Whittier added the final points of the game on a 39-yard pass from Sausau to Ollison with eight seconds left. The scoring toss came on a fourth and four and gave WC a 5-of-6 effort on fourth down conversions for the game. Mitchell added two points with a pass to Greg Sweeney to give the Poets 23.

Occidental outgained the Poets 419-237 and averaged 7.0 yards per play to Whittier's 4.2. WC ran for 67 yards on 32 carries for a 2.1 yard per rush average.

Daniel Enriquez ran for a team-high 37 yards on 13 carries and Paul Schilling chipped in with 32 yards on six carries. Sausau finished 13-of-24 for 131 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.

Giovanni Salinas and Chaisson Sears finished with 11 tackles each and Salinas, Travis Driskell and Tyson Schilling all had sacks.