Box Score

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Los Angeles, CA — The 2023 Oxy men's soccer team are officially SCIAC regular season champions! The Occidental men's soccer team traveled to La Verne with their fate in their own hands as they could secure the best record in the SCIAC and the #1 seed in the postseason tournament with a win.

After Redlands University had secured a win earlier in the day against Cal Lutheran, the Tigers needed to get a win of their own to become regular season champions.

The Tigers came out ready to go against the Leopards and were putting pressure on the defense with good passes creating good looks at the goal for Oxy. 

The offense would total 3 shots before the game had seen 6 minutes go by, two coming from Vicente Navarro and one from Aiden Aley whose shot forced La Verne's goalie to make a save. Nearing 12 minutes gone by in the game, Joey Schwartz, the SCIAC leader in assists with 7, put a beautiful shot on goal off of a free kick that the La Verne goalie made an impressive save to keep the game in a 0-0 tie. 

Oxy's Sebastion Romero followed with two shots of his own, both of which were close to breaking the tie but were just above the crossbar. Aley would have another shot opportunity that he put on goal nearing 20 minutes gone by in the game, but the Leopard goalie was proving to be able to make impressive saves to keep Oxy off of the scoreboard for the time being. 

Eventually the Tigers would be able to break through when Andrew Notter received a pass from Kai Fiedelholtz and was able to capitalize on the opportunity and put the goal in the back of the net to give Oxy a 1-0 lead. The Tiger superfans in attendance erupted into a roar as the team celebrated the huge goal on the field.

Notter would receive a pass from Tyler Na-Nakornpanom before passing the ball to Fiedelholtz who would dribble the ball towards the goal until the perfect time to pass back to Notter who got the ball past the goalkeeper's diving arms.

With arguably the Tiger's most important goal of the season, Notter added to his impressive total on the season and moved into a tie for fourth most goals in the SCIAC with 10 goals on the season. Oxy would have a few more opportunities on offense before the half closed with Kai Fiedelholtz and Joey Schwartz taking shots that almost extended the Tiger lead, but the game would enter halftime with a score of 1-0 in favor of the Tigers. 

Oxy would come out in the 2nd half with 45 minutes to go to become regular season SCIAC champions if they could hold onto their 1-0 lead. The offense would continue to put pressure on La Verne's defense.

Marcus Chmielewski and Aiden Aley both had shots that came close to extending the Tigers' lead early on in the 2nd half. Aley had two shots, the second of which needed to be saved and deflected out of bounds by the goalkeeper.

With 17 minutes left in the game, Fiedelholtz would draw a foul about 20 yards out from the goal. Joey Schwartz, who has made multiple goals on free kick opportunities this season, added another one as he stepped up and beautifully placed a kick beyond the goalkeeper's dive to the left and into the back of the goal before celebrating with the Oxy fans in attendance.

The goal extended the Oxy lead to 2-0 as the Tigers drew even closer to becoming SCIAC regular season champions. The Tigers would play intense defense as they looked to put the finishing touches on a terrific 2023 regular season. 

As the clock drew closer to 0:00, Oxy continued to play the strong defense that they played all game long. The Tigers limited La Verne to 2 shots in the game and kept them from creating many scoring opportunities in the 2nd half. 

The game would end with a score of 2-0 as Oxy officially secured the 2023 SCIAC regular season championship. The Tigers finished conference play with a record of 8-1-3 to finish in 1st place in the SCIAC standings. The team's overall record was 11-3-3.

Back in the postseason tournament, Oxy will be looking to secure 2 more wins to also become 2023 SCIAC tournament champions. The Tigers will be ready to play on Wednesday night when they host the 1st game of the SCIAC tournament in Jack Kemp stadium on Patterson Field. Be sure to be a part of the crowd as the Oxy faithful will be ready to support their Tigers!