LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The Occidental College football team gave up 321 yards rushing, turned the ball over five times, had a punt blocked and still had a chance to win with just over two minutes left in regulation.

Down 23-21 with the ball on the University of La Verne's 32-yard line, the Tigers needed to get inside the 25 to be in injured kicker Josh Mun's constricted field goal range.

But quarterback Luke Collis was sacked by Nick Gutierrez on a key third down play, setting up a desperate fourth and long that fell short, ending Oxy's last real opportunity to overcome a sloppy performance in a 30-21 loss to La Verne at Jack Kemp Stadium on Saturday.

"I thought we had a chance to score on that drive. We only needed a field goal, we didn't need a touchdown," Occidental coach Dale Widolff said, adding that he thought the maximum distance for Mun would have been 35-40 yards. "It's just disappointing that, with the game on the line, we didn't make the plays we needed to make."

La Verne (1-3, 1-1) had three players; Tanner Thompson, Matthew Biggers and Thomas Arguello, rush for more than a 100 yards and three touchdowns combined. On the other side of the ball, the Tigers (2-2, 1-1) managed just 42 yards on 25 carries.

"Our inability to run the ball really turned us into a one-dimensional team.  It's hard to win one-dimensional" Widolff said. "And their ability to run the ball for over 300 yards. …It's just hard to win if you're going to give up 300 yards rushing."

Despite their troubles in the running game offensively and defensively, the game came down to a handful of key plays that all seemed to go La Verne's way.

"It looks like the difference between this week and last week," Widolff said. "We made the big plays last week and they made them this week."

Two in particular were especially troubling for Oxy.

Just 17 seconds before half, the Leopards pulled off a hook-n-ladder. Cedric Ho caught Arguello's pass at the 20 yard line, then pitched the ball back to Matt Griffin who finished off the trick play with a 25-yard touchdown run, giving the Leopards a 20-14 halftime lead.

"That was a great call by them in that situation. You have nothing to loose," Widolff said. "Even if you fumble it, it's going to be the end of the half."

Around the same moment in the second half, the Tigers again gave up a big play late, this time a 60 yard touchdown run to Matthew Biggers gave the Leopards a two-possession lead with under two minutes left in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game.

Safety Ayrton Bates, who led the Tigers with eight tackles, said Oxy failing to respond to La Verne's big plays was as much of a factor in the loss as giving them up.

"I think we couldn't counter with our own big plays," Bates said. "We had momentum, but we couldn't take advantage of it on both sides of the ball."

There were blemishes in an otherwise impressive passing night for the Tigers too.

Collis threw for 407 yards and three touchdowns, a pair to Matthew Tuckness and one to Ryan Rodriguez, but he was sacked four times and threw two interceptions."

"As an offense we were a little unorganized, we had a lot of turnovers. … We really shot ourselves in the foot," Tuckness said. "They made some plays, but we just didn't make enough to win."

The Tigers hit the road next Saturday to play Pomona-Pitzer in the "Battle of the Drum," in the oldest college football rivalry in Southern California.

"Half the teams in America lost today. You got to move on," Widolff said. "I'm not very smart, I just know to go back to work. So that's what we'll do, we'll go back to work."