BETHLEHEM, Pa. — It's been quite a long time since the Lehigh men's soccer team last defeated a nationally ranked team. In fact, it's been four years since the Mountain Hawks' 2-1 victory over 14th-ranked American back on Sept. 27, 2014. On Wednesday night, Lehigh got a big 1-0 victory over No. 20 Colgate to improve to 6-4-1 overall and 3-0-0 in the Patriot League.
 
The offense was extremely active, especially in the first half. The Mountain Hawks had a great chance to score in the 11th minute when sophomore Blaise Milanek's shot went wide to try to put Lehigh up.
 
In the 14th minute, Patriot League Offensive Player of the Week Mark Forrest had a chance with an opening, but was saved by Colgate goalkeeper Jacob Harris. Freshman Josh Luchini followed up with a shot on goal that was saved by Harris on the rebound.
 
"It was an ebb and flow game. We had some good chances throughout the game that I would have liked us to build a cushion," said head coach Dean Koski. "I was pretty confident it was going to come down to a one or two goal game and it did, and we were on the positive end of that. I like the way that we brought our energy and our intentions today were really good."

 

The game changed in a big way in the 31th minute when Luchini's shot was saved by Harris and ricocheted to the foot of Forrest, who found the opening for his fifth goal of the season and broke the stalemate.
 
"Mark is just a handful. He was a handful all day long for Colgate and he created some chances for himself and for others. I thought he did a good job of getting us down in that end and then he followed up on Josh's shot," said Koski.
 
"He was where he needed to be to bury the goal. I think at times, Mark was a little bit unselfish in the final third and I'm going to encourage him to be a little bit more selfish and maybe next time shoot one or two more of those passes."
 
The goal is Forrest's 38th of his career and also increased his career point total to 97, now 10 away from passing Andrew Mittendorf as the Lehigh and Patriot League leader in points.
 
The defense was top notch led by juniors Nolan Coulter, Zarin Tuten, and senior Matt Morana, holding the Raiders to just two shots on goal. Junior goalkeeper Will Smith earned his sixth shutout of the season, lowering his GAA to 0.87.
 
With the victory, the Mountain Hawks currently have a firm grasp on first place in the Patriot League with seven regular season games left.
 
With the first home win of the 2018 season under its belt, Lehigh turns its focus to Navy on Saturday at the Ulrich Sports Complex at 6 p.m. Tickets are $5 for purchase for the first "Summit Series" game of the season.
 
"We can only focus on Navy. If we have a really good result tonight, which we did, and then we don't bring it on Saturday, tonight really doesn't mean as much," Koski said. "I think it's really important to build on these wins in Patriot League play, so we're just going to focus on trying to find a way to get three points against Navy.
 
"They're a team who's always competitive and always brings a lot of energy. We can't look at their record because they're well coached and they're going to bring it. We have to be ready for them."
 
Saturday's match will be streamed live on the Patriot League Network.
 
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