Box Score Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
ORANGE, Calif. – The Whittier College Men's Soccer team had a huge match-up on the road Saturday night with Chapman University but was able to come away with the 2-1 victory.
The Purple & Gold complete the sweep over the Panthers on the season, who were coming off an upset win over top ranked Claremont-M-S. Whittier has now won five of their last six and are now 4-0-1 in the month of October. They sit atop the standings within the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) at 8-3-1, 7-1-1 SCIAC.
It was a game full of late heroics as WC added the game-winner with three minutes remaining in regulation. Whittier led 1-0 at the break following a strike from Nicolas Barrera (Bellflower, Calif.) in the 26th minute. A long ball was played to RayRay Roberson (Albuquerque, NM) who gathered it by the corner flag. He then carried it into the box flicking it to Barrera who finished in front of the goal.
This lead held until the 86th minute when Chapman found the equalizer from Jarod Matteoni who finished a long throw from Chris Sanchez with a header just inside the back post. But the celebration would end there as Whittier would come down :13 seconds later with the eventual game-winner from Alejandro Trujillo (Buena Park, Calif.) who connected for his fourth goal on the year with a strike just inside the crossbar from 20-yards out after being fed from Matteo Loi (Kirkland, WA).
Teddy Nickerson (Seattle, WA) played all 90:00 minutes posting two saves against three shots. Barrera and Loi each added two shots for the game and Trujillo and Nainoa Loschky (Bellevue, WA) would each tack on another.
Whittier was outshot on the night, which is rare to see 9-6 but held the advantage on corner kicks 5-4.
Whittier returns to the pitch this Saturday, October 26 when they travel to Thousand Oaks, Calif. to take on Cal Lutheran University beginning at 7:00pm.
