Students dominate faculty on Wilson Field

   It was like pitting Manchester City against Botswana's C-list team. It was a pitbull against a chihuahua. It was, essentially, a mismatch.

   The faculty and students battled it out Friday morning on Wilson Field in front of dozens of spectators. The faculty's enthusiasm wasn't enough to overcome the student dynamos, who won 14-"3." Three is in quotes because Patrick Fuery, chair of the English department, used some interesting tactics to score his two goals.

   He scored his first goal when he wrapped up the student goalie and carried her into her own net. The second was when Fuery booted it from midfield (the game was played on half the normal soccer field) and the goalie declined to stop it. The third came from a striking Kent Lehnhof, associate English professor, in the second half.

   "I coach my 9-year-old son's soccer team. So I told everyone if we were up against 9-year-olds I'd be useful," Lehnhof said. "It went about as well as it could have gone. I'm still looking for a silver lining."

   The faculty team, named the Inter-Dictions, made matching red T-shirts and did some playful trash-talking before the game. The students, a few of whom played soccer for Chapman this semester, ran circles around the faculty members. They were winners of the coveted squirrel trophy, a small trophy with a brown squirrel on top.

   "It went amazing, I had a great time," said sophomore Poya Osgouei. "The best part was beating the faculty and having a good time doing it."

   In a last effort to score some goals, the faculty threw all 18 team members on the field at once. The students responded with their 13 members and the game quickly dissolved into wackiness. Fuery ran around playfully shoving students while Patrick Quinn, dean of Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences, looked on bemused.

   "I thought we were extremely good at passing to the students," Fuery said.

   Would he do something like this again?

   "When I catch my breath," he said.

   Although the result was comic, the amount of support was nice for the organizers to see.

   "It was a great turnout," said junior Derrick Ortega, one of Fuery's students whose Premier League feud with the professor led to the game.

   But Ortega is wary about rubbing the victory in just yet

 "I'll wait until my grade sets in," he said.

   Ortega wants to make this an end-of-semester tradition.