CLAREMONT, Calif. — Maybe it was because of midterm week, maybe the Occidental College soccer teams just didn't have it today, or maybe the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps teams were just that good.

Whatever it was led to the Athenas and Stags getting the better of the Occidental soccer teams in both games on Wednesday.

A few hours after then men struggled in a 5-1 loss to CMS at Lower Field, the women fell on the road by the same score in a game that closely resembled the men's.

Oxy fell behind, then evened the game at one when Elissa Minamishin scored her tenth goal of the season on a penalty kick.  But the Athenas (5-5-2, 5-3) would add two goals before half and two more in the second, winning the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference match easily.

Senior Oxy defender Maddy Rasch expected CMS to be good, but said that the reasons for the big loss were self-inflicted.

"They are a good team beat team, but we didn't want it bad enough in the first half and we just had a lot of breakdowns," Rasch said. "It's tough to come away with anything positive."

Karina Garcia had an opportunity to bring Oxy within one on a breakaway in the first half, but a clean challenge from a CMS defender kept her out of the goal. In the second half Alex Nicholson had a similar chance foiled when the charging CMS goalkeeper closed the gap on her angle.

The loss, while disappointing, is not devastating. The Tigers can easily move into fourth place or higher in the SCIAC standings with victories. A win against La Verne at Jack Kemp Stadium on Saturday puts them right back in the playoff hunt.

"I think we know we're still in it but we have a lot of improving to do," Oxy's Bree Geary said. "We know we have the talent it's just a matter of making it work."