WHITTIER, Calif. - After a lively contest earlier in the year won by Southwestern the two teams squared off again, this time on the Poets home field. Whittier built an early lead to defeat the Pirates 23-8 Thursday afternoon.
A scoreless opening five minutes gave way to a flurry of goals as Whittier posted two within seconds of each other to take an early 2-0 lead. Southwestern responded as Kai Knight-Turcan found Zach Taylor who buried the ball in the net to bring SU within one, 2-1, with 5:35 to go in the first quarter.
Whittier dominated from that point on, scoring 15 unanswered goals on a run that lasted the entirety of the second quarter and part of the third. David Miller broke the run with an unassisted goal with 12:38 to play in the third quarter.
Phil Sprague added a goal four minutes later to cut the deficit to 14, but the Poets responded with a pair of goals to go up by 16 once again. With 12 seconds remaining in the third quarter, Everett Barger scored, assisted by Zac Asbury.
Whittier was able to remain at an arm's length the rest of the way, despite a late three goal run by the Pirates.
Southwestern trailed 64-29 in shots and commited nearly twice as many turnovers, but won 23-35 faceoffs.
Asbury led offensively with two goals and one assist while Taylor added two goals. David Miller posted 12 ground balls in the loss while Bailey Middleton added two caused turnovers.
Southwestern drops to 7-6 with the loss. They return to Texas to face Carroll College out of Wisconsin on Saturday, March 24th in Irving at 1 pm.