Tigers hit the road, play for The Drum

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Nov. 6, 2009) – For the last four weeks Occidental College has taken the field at D.W. Patterson Field as the home team. This weekend the Tigers travel to Pomona-Pitzer, where they not only look to rebound from a loss to Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference foe Cal Lutheran, but the boys from Eagle Rock will play to retain possession of “The Drum,” in the first of two rivalry games this season.

The Tigers
Occidental enters the weekend 5-2 overall, 4-1 in SCIAC play. After climbing to the No. 18 spot in the nation, a 24-14 loss to CLU on Halloween eve dropped the black and orange from the Top-25. In the loss, Oxy looked to Chris and Jordan Washington who caught a 12-yard pass [from Scott Saunders] and ran back a punt 87 yards, respectively, for the only two Tigers’ touchdowns of the game. Neil Martin capped off both plays with a PAT.

Defensively five players had six tackles apiece for the Tigers led by Alex Wertheimer and Zac Perkins who had four solo stops each. Wertheimer added a pair of quarterback hurries to his total while Jim Hildensperger, Jesse Fischer and Josh Beck each finished with six tackles as well. Cory Suess picked off CLU’s quarterback for the only interception by the Oxy defense while Kevin May was credited with a sack for a loss of six yards.

The Sagehens
Pomona-Pitzer collected just 17 first downs and tallied 208 total offensive yards. Quarterback Jacob Caron was 23-for-47 for 194 yards and was intercepted twice. PP was held scoreless in the first half while the University of Redlands opened up a 13-0 lead at the intermission. Caron scurried into the end zone for five and seven yard touchdown runs in the third and fourth quarters, respectively. Bobby Montalvo kicked the extra point on both scores, but UR walked away with the 41-14 win.

Defensively Jacob Rollins recorded 12.5 total tackles, nine solo stops, while forcing and recovering a fumble. Montalvo and Thomas Fenster were next in line with 8.5 tackles apiece. Montalvo and Justin Meng made six solo tackles each and Meng was responsible for the only PP sack of the day, which was for a loss of eight yards. Joshua Rothman nabbed an interception and returned it 33 yards.

The Series
The rivalry that the Tigers and Sagehens share dates back to 1895, which marks the longest-running rivalry in Southern California. Overall Occidental has won 59 of those games, including the last five years. The Sagehens have come out victorious 48 times with their last win recorded in 2003. During the history of this battle the teams have tied three times, the last (6-6) in 1947. As for the largest margins of victory, Occidental won 70-16 in 1988 while Pomona-Pitzer won 52-0 in 1903. The only other rivalries on the West Coast that are older than this one are Stanford-Cal (1892), and the Oregon-Oregon State (1894).  This week marks the 113th meeting between these two schools.

The Drum
In 1941 the Alumni Associations from both schools got together and came up with the idea of playing for “The Drum,” which is awarded to the winner of the annual Pomona-Pitzer-Occidental football game.