Box Score Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The Whittier College Poets dropped an overtime thriller Saturday evening to the Tigers of Occidental College after a seesaw battle that saw nine goals scored between both programs.
Whittier now drops to 6-9, 6-5 SCIAC, while Occidental improves to 6-6, 5-6 SCIAC keeping their SCIAC hopes alive.
Back on September 19, Whittier took down the Tigers 2-1 but saw the tides turn Saturday evening when Oxy erased a one goal deficit twice to power past the Poets in OT.
Occidental jumped out in front 2-0 with both goals coming two minutes apart from each other in the 18th and 20th minutes from Marcus Brandford and Ben Murray. Brandford tallied the first goal of the contest when he found the bottom left corner of the goal after receiving a pass from Jack Day prior to Murray tallying his first score of the contest when he dribbled past Poet goalkeeper David Diaz and struck the ball through the middle of the goal.
Whittier however answered with a 3-0 run of their own to grab a one goal lead going into the half. In a span covering seven minutes beginning in the 26th minute the Poets tallied three goals with two coming from Francis Maxwell and one from Brian Russell. Maxwell answered first to cut the deficit to two when he centered a ball middle and struck it off the corner post and into the back of the goal before he replied with his second goal in the 31st minute when he scored off of a throw in.
A minute later in the 32nd minute Russell replied on the ensuing Poet possession to give the Poets their first lead of the contest when he received a ball from Dylan Fortin in the box, which he struck to the bottom left corner of the goal that put Whittier in front 3-2 going into the half.
Coming out of the break, Occidental tallied the equalizer six minutes in when Day connected off of a rebound immediately following a save by Diaz off of a Tyler Eng shot that tied the game up at 3-3. Shortly after, Whittier regained the lead eight minutes later when Fortin found the bottom left corner of the goal after receiving a free kick put in by Russell that put the Purple & Gold in front once again 4-3.
It seemed as if Fortin's goal would prove to be the decisive one until Oxy drew a foul on the right side about 25 yards out with less than a minute left in the game. With everybody—including Oxy goalkeeper Agrimis—packed into the penalty box, Carotenuto played in a free kick that somehow found Will Pottenger who put it into the back of the net for the equalizer with 27.1 seconds remaining.
This forced the game into overtime, the first OT session for Whittier this season but it wound up finishing in Occidentals favor as they put four shots on goal in the extra period getting the game winner in the last minute from Connor Freeman who received two assists from Carotenuto and Buchmann.
Despite the loss the Poets outshot the Tigers 26-21 and the corner kicks were even at 4-4. Diaz finished with seven saves against 12 shots, while Oxy had both Tristan Cooper and Ian Agrimis play separate half's and tally four saves combined.
The Poets look to bounce back as they continue with SCIAC play as they hit the road for two games first to take on Pomona-Pitzer on Wednesday, October 17 beginning at 4:00pm before taking on the Kingsmen of Cal Lutheran University on Saturday, October 20 with game time set for 7:00pm.
