Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - In a game that included nine yellow cards and two reds and both teams coming off of double overtime losses in their previous games, the Whittier College men's soccer team gave a solid performance Wednesday evening at William Rolland Stadium, earning a 1-1 draw against Cal Lutheran University.

With the draw, the Poets move to 3-1-1, 0-1-1 SCIAC, while Cal Lutheran moves to 2-2-2, 1-1-1 SCIAC)

The Poets got on the board early opening up the scoring in the 12th minute.  Senior Lucas Depinna (Portland, OR) got on the end of a goal kick from goalkeeper Jorge Rivas (Lake Forest, Calif.) and flicked the ball further up field.  Sophomore striker James Suri (Lake Forest, Calif.) then latched onto the ball, turned up the pitch, and promptly went one on one with the Cal Lu keeper Jack Duncan before smartly putting the ball in the back of the net to put the Poets up 1-0.

The score remained this way for the next 20 minutes until the ball took a deflection in the Whittier box, where it fell to Kingsmen Nick Baldi, who evened the score at one goal apiece.

The start of the second half seemed relatively even until Cal Lu's Jorge Galvan received his second yellow card of the match and was sent off allowing Whittier to play a man-up the rest of the game.  Despite the advantage, the Poets were unable to capitalize as the game went into OT. 

In extra time, the Poets continued to put strain on the shorthanded Kingsmen as they had a look for the game winner in the first OT period but Duncan made a spectacular diving stop that would have surely been a goal and a victory for the Purple & Gold.

CLU had one decent look at a game-winner in the second overtime, as Tal Zaiet found himself with the ball just above the top of the box but missed the shot just left of the goal.

At the 107:00 mark in the second overtime, Cal Lutheran's Zach Torres picked up a red card forcing the Kingsmen to play two men down in the final three minutes but again the Poets couldn't find the back fo the goal as the game would end in a draw. 

"A relatively good performance overall" said senior midfielder Matt Evans (Bury St. Edmunds, England). "We just didn't have that killer instinct when dominating the game."

Shots for the game remained even at 11 apiece, while Whittier held a slight advantage on corner kicks 5-4.  Rivas played all 110:00 minutes picking up two saves, while Duncan had one.  Depinna and Suri each had three shots to lead the Poets.   

The Poets remain on the road this Saturday, September 20 when they take on the Beavers of Caltech beginning at 4:00pm.