REDLANDS, Calif. – The University of Redlands Men's Soccer team (6-1, 2-1 SCIAC) suffered their first loss of 2023 as they fell to the first place team in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC), Occidental College, 2-0 at Farquhar Field Saturday evening.

It was a slow start for the Bulldogs offense as their first shot did not come until the 23^rd minute when Skylar Darwen (Los Angeles, CA) put his shot wide right. The offense would start to wake up with that look as Cody Bell (Highland, CA) would earn a shot less than two minutes later, but his attempt also missed to the right of the goal.

Those two shots started a string of five unanswered attempts for Redlands as Phillip Kostenko (Redmond, WA) had his shot blocked in the 28^th, followed by Gabriel Martinez (San Jose, CA) who also had his blocked in the 30^th, and Connor Claborn (Santa Clarita, CA) who had a go for the goal, but the Tiger defense was able get another deflection in the 31^st.

Despite the pressure and possession in favor of Redlands, Occidental was able to make it 1-0 in the 33^rd minute as they had a pair of quick passes around the edge of the box before finishing from about 10 yards out.

The Bulldogs were unable to get any shots off the remainder of the half as they trailed after 45 minutes.

In the second half Redlands was able to finally force a save out of the Tiger keeper as Spencer Palmer (San Diego, CA) had his attempt stopped in the 59^th.

A second save was made between the posts for the Tiger goalie as C. Bell looked to equalize in the 67^th.  Five minutes later Occidental would take advantage of the Bulldogs' inability to generate offense making it 2-0 in the 72^nd minute.

Across the final 13:00 minutes Jarette Barajas (San Jose, CA) and Kostenko had three shots blocked as the UR offense was unable to breakdown the Tigers' defense in a 2-0 loss.

The Bulldogs now sit in a tie for second place with Caltech within the conference standings. They remain at home with a matchup against Pomona-Pitzer on Wednesday, September 27 beginning at 7:00 p.m.