The University of La Verne dropped its SCIAC opener, falling on the road at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 20-14 Saturday at Zinda Field in Claremont.

Trailing 20-7 late in the fourth quarter, the Leopards scored a touchdown with under two minutes remaining but could regain possession before time expired to end their attempt at a comeback victory.

CMS controlled action early, first mounting a long drive deep into Leopard territory, and later recovering a fumble on the Leopard 23 yard line.  La Verne's defense kept the Stags out the end zone on both occasions, resulting in a pair of field goals from Chet Corcos of 24 and 25 yards to stake CMS to a 6-0 lead after the opening stanza. 

Late in the second quarter, CMS scored the game's first touchdown when Patrick Rooney connected with Spencer Clark from 59 yards out to propel the Stags to a 13-0 advantage with 3:39 remaining before halftime. 

The Stags again gained possession with 3:02 left, but a Leopard defense responded with an interception of a Rooney pass, setting up the Leos with the ball at the CMS 25. 

The Leos would convert when Christian Winnewisser tossed a 14-yard scoring strike to Matt Griffin with 59 seconds remaining.  The point after from Alex Miller sliced the deficit to 13-7 heading into intermission.

La Verne's defense contained the Stags in the third quarter as the Leopards forced five punts, an interception and a fumble on the next seven CMS possessions.  However, the Stag defense answered by holding scoreless during the same stretch, forcing one Leopard interception and holding La Verne on a fourth-down play.

After a stalemate for more than 27 minutes, CMS broke through and went up 20-7 courtesy of a 52-yard scamper from Rooney with 2:46 to play.  The Leopards refused to quit and answered the Stag touchdown with a score of their own, marching 70 yards on 10 plays, culminating on a 2-yard run from Devon Libran to cut the decifit to 20-14.

Winnewisser, who began the season at tight end, returned to his old position at quarterback and helped ignite the Leopard passing attack, completing 20 of 51 pass attempts for 205 yards.  Griffin was Winnewisser's favorite target as he hauled in game-highs of 10 passes for a 125 yards and a score.  Libran caught three passes for 43 yards.

For CMS, Rooney tallied team-highs with 154 yards passing and 128 yards rushing. Clark caught three passes for 80 yards and a TD.

Daniel Brown led La Verne in tackles with 11 (3 solo) including one sack, while Jorge Villagomez contributed 10 tackles (3 solo).  Donald Mull and Ryan Baranek each registered an interception.

CMS improves to 3-0 overall and 1-0 in league competition while the Leopards drop to 0-3 and 0-1, respectively.

La Verne continues SCIAC action next week when it returns home next Saturday to face Occidental College at Ortmayer Stadium.   Last season the Leopards fell by a point to the Tigers in a 14-13 defeat in Eagle Rock.  Kickoff for Saturday's game is 1:00 pm.