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Last year PCC didn’t have much going on with sports as teams had forgettable seasons. This time around, with more experienced coaches and better recruiting, the Lancers are fighting strong and winning more. Football, soccer, volleyball and water polo are all having a thrilling season.”The coaches have been excellent motivators and the student-athletes are working better as a team,” Interim Dean/Athletic Director Beverly Tate said.
Football only had three wins out of ten games with slim margins last year. Head coach Kenny Lawler improved his record to a winning 8-7 while the team has won all five games so far this season. Lancers football is ranked ninth in the top 25 national poll, and third in Southern California.

PCC’s defense leads the state with sacking quarterbacks 26 times and has intercepted the opponent’s passes 13 times. Pasadena has scored 214 points, compared to the 103 points they have allowed, including a scoreless game against Golden West, which they defeated 34-0.

Quarterback David Pittman made a new school record last weekend with passing for 481 yards in part of a record tying six touchdown passes in mostly the first half of the game as second-string quarterback Mike Nicholas came in the second half.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of PCC football’s last state championship, and players coming in from across the nation from Hawaii to Florida, Michigan to Texas are looking to cap it off with a big victory in the end.

Besides beating L.A. Harbor the past three years, women’s volleyball hasn’t won a match since 2004 against Mt. San Antonio College. The women started out slow but with new coach Tammy Silva guiding the Lancers, they won three full matches in a row, including a five-game battle, plus two early tournament match wins.

Last weekend they beat five teams in the San Diego City Tournament, then lost to Santa Barbara in the championship 56-point match by four points.

Silva’s record would be split with 10 wins and 10 losses with the tournament wins, but as they are shortened games her official record is 9-3.

The better-recruited team includes a couple league leaders including Aliyyah Abdullah who was measured as having 33-inch vertical jump.

Women’s soccer beat only L.A. Mission last year during a 1 win-13 loss-7 ties season. Soccer director Cherif Zein was heard many times saying, “next year will be better.”

They only made 12 goals over nine of 21 games.

This season, the women have six victories so far with two losses and four ties. On Tuesday, the Lancers beat conference rival Mt. SAC with a one-goal shutout. That win bumped them up to a tie for 16th place in Southern California, which is the state championship playoff cut.

On the men’s soccer side, the team has dropped to 21st place with the cutoff at 12th place. The team just missed the 2006 cut in 14th place with eight wins, nine losses and four ties. This year they have three wins, four losses and two ties, with scoring at least one goal every game.

Water Polo had a decent season in 2006, but with mostly inexperienced players fell short placing fifth in conference by barely beating L.A. Trade Tech in the final 12-11 goal game. The team won 11 times and lost 17 with a 12 game losing streak after game one. The team has many California Interscholastic Federation (CIF – high school) leading players including scoring leader Lybov Tchougonova who scored well over 100 goals at Crescenta Valley High last year, has scored 44 times already in 11 games.

Besides losing against Mt. San Antonio and Fullerton in the season opening tournament. The team just lost to ’06 state champion Long Beach City this past weekend.

They have dominated several teams including games such as L.A. Trade Tech 20-1, which was with the second string of players getting most of the playing time. Lancers water polo has almost doubled their competition with 124 goals compared to opponents getting in sixty-seven by the goalie pair of Jenny Bartlett and PJ Starr, who trade off time in the cage.

The Lancers athletics programs will be working hard through October showing what they have, as most teams go into conference competition aiming for conference titles and hopefully state championship playoffs in mid November.

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