Box Score Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
ORANGE, Calif. – The Whittier College men's soccer team who took out the Leopards of La Verne two nights ago, dropped their first SCIAC contest Wednesday evening to the Panthers of Chapman University who is joining the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for the first time.
Whittier now drops to 1-4, 1-1 SCIAC, while Chapman improves to 2-1, 1-0 SCIAC. The Purple & Gold was without senior captain Adolfo Santos who was hampered with a hamstring injury and was forced to sit out for his second straight game.
The Poets started off the game quickly getting two opportunities early with two corner kicks and two shots that wound up high by Dylan Fortin and Francis Maxwell, but neither connected keeping the game scoreless. Then a few minutes later, Whittier again had three more opportunities coming from Kevin Hartsough, Devin Guthrie, and Srdan Jovanovic but again Whittier came away empty.
They continued to pressure the ball, but saw an unlucky turn of events happen in the 28th minute, when the Panthers Mauricio Alfonso connected on a free kick from 30 yards out that ricocheted off the side post and then in that put Chapman in front 1-0. Immediately following the goal the Poets continued to play up tempo and received three more shots from Maxwell until he received a red card with two minutes remaining in the first half that ejected him from the game.
The Poets had three opportunities within a minute's time to even the score up getting a header from Jovanovic off a corner from Brian Russell, getting a second shot from Jovanovic, which was blocked in front of the goal, and lastly getting a shot from Khaled Gara that went wide.
Whittier continued to play aggressively getting another three shots on goal, but was unable to find the back of the net. Then in the 27th minute, Chapman's Nick Velasquez came down the field in transition and got fed a ball from Duncan Capriotti that wound up being put past a diving David Diaz pushing Chapman out in front 2-0.
From there it was all Chapman and being forced to play a man down in the second half, proved to be a daunting task for the Poets as the Panthers rattled off four goals and held a 17-8 advantage in shots in the period helping them preserve the 5-0 victory.
The Poets look to bounce back for their home opener on Friday, September 14 when they take on Southwestern University with game time slated for 7:00pm.
