Photo: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com

WHITTIER, Calif. (Oct. 23, 2021) – The Whittier College football team wowed its fans with its best offensive performance of the season in Saturday evening's rematch with the University of La Verne.

Head Coach Mike Neale and his staff called an outstanding game, putting their playmakers in a position to shine while the players executed in the face of a relentless La Verne running game on the other side of the ball. In spite of this, Whittier opened things with the first scoring drive of the game for either team. Freshman Nicholas Burton (Westminster, Calif. / Costa Mesa) led the drive at quarterback and set the tone with a 19-yard completion to senior Moises Gonzalez (Long Beach, Calif. / Long Beach Poly) on the first play from scirmmage. Junior kicker Noah Handel (Laguna Beach, Calif. / Laguna Beach) capped off the drive with a 37-yard field goal, his first of the year inside the confines of Memorial Stadium.

Gonzalez would go on to make some noise in a variety of ways. The Long Beach-native would line up all over the field at receiver, in addition to in the backfield as a running back and quarterback to run plays out of the Wildcat formation. He opened up the second quarter by surprising the Leopards with a 53-yard run that took the Poets down the field to the Leopards' one-yard line. Gonzalez would finish off the drive by taking the direct snap over the goal line for the Poets' first touchdown of the evening. The senior would continue to make his presence felt on the ensuing drive, which saw him gain 17 yards through the air and 15 yards on the ground to set up a touchdown from junior running back Chandler McCaffer (Whittier, Calif. / La Serna). Gonzalez would finish the game with a team-high seven catches for 75 yards, and 93 rushing yards on 10 carries. He also attempted two downfield passes.

Whittier's final touchdown of the game came on a 39-yard pass from sophomore quarterback Sebastian Pimentel (Whittier, Calif. / California) to senior wide receiver Hakim Williams Jr. (Covina, Calif. / Covina). The touchdown was Williams' fifth of the season, tying his season-best mark from 2019. The stellar play from Whittier's offensive playmakers allowed the Poets to rack up 327 yards of total offense, a new high for the 2021 season. Defensively, junior Aaron Martinez (Oak Harbor, Wash. / Oak Harbor) led the way with nine total tackles, and combined with senior defensive lineman Cameron Kimball (Fort Sill, Okla. / Silver Valley) to notch a safety with two minutes to go in the third quarter.

Neale and the Poets will turn their attention to Saturday, Oct. 30 when they travel to Thousand Oaks, Calif. to take on California Lutheran University for a 7 p.m. game.

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