HAMILTON—The Colgate Men's Soccer team continued its late season push on Saturday night at Beyer-Small '76 Field with a dominant 2-0 win over Lafayette.
After controlling play early on, the Raiders notched the game's first tally in the 25
th minute off of a corner kick.
Freddy Jonsson sent in the original ball at the top of the six-yard box and then a wild scramble ensued that ended with
Tim Oberg putting home his first goal on the campaign.
Colgate was staunch defensively in the opening 45 minutes, as they did not surrender a single shot on frame, while the Leopards attempted four that all went wide.
In the second half, the Raiders nearly doubled up on their advantage when
Kentaro Morrison sent a long range shot that was just held out by Leopard goalkeeper Alex Sutton.
After Colgate continued to control possession, they broke through again with just over 16 minutes left to play in the game. Jonsson took a feed from
Kian Alberto in the middle of the pitch and worked his way into a shooting position a few yards outside the 18-yard box. From there, he ripped a left-footed shot that tucked into the near post for his second goal of the year.
The Raider defense continued to shine after Jonsson's strike, as they held strong on the backend and did not surrender a single shot on goal.
BOTTOM LINE
• Colgate 2, Lafayette 0.
RECORD UPDATES
• Colgate earned its second straight league victory, improving to 3-1-2 in the Patriot League and 7-3-5 overall.
• Lafayette snapped its two-game league unbeaten streak with the defeat. The Leopards are now 1-3-2 in the Patriot League and 5-6-3 overall.
KEY RAIDER NOTES
• Oberg's goal was the first of his collegiate career and proved to be the game-winner.
• Colgate is now unbeaten in its last three Patriot League games, claiming seven points out of a possible nine.
•
Jacob Harris earned his league-leading fifth shutout in conference play in the win, even though he did not register a save.
• Alberto continues to lead the Raiders in assists, as he earned his fifth helper of the season on Jonsson's goal.
BY THE NUMBERS
• Colgate outshot the Leopards 18-4 in the game, which included an 11-0 advantage in the second half.
• Shots on goal finished 8-0 in favor of the Raiders.
• Colgate had six corner kicks to Lafayette's one.
FROM THE SOURCE
• Colgate head coach
Erik Ronning:
"I'm really happy with our overall performance," said Ronning. "We started the game really positively and we haven't started games on the front foot like we did today, so that was really positive for us."
"Right from the onset, we controlled the tempo," said Ronning. "And the guys stuck to the game plan and the follow through on it was a credit to our young men. It was a terrific overall performance."
"I'm hoping this trend will continue and we'll play our best soccer over the course of the next three critical games," said Ronning. "All of them are incredibly important and by no means have we played our best yet, but we're getting into a pretty good rhythm and are feeling confident."
"Our guys are really focused to get to the postseason," said Ronning. "We know we haven't gotten there as of yet, so we're just focused on Holy Cross and getting ready for them."
UP NEXT
• Colgate is back in action on Wednesday to host the Crusaders in a Patriot League showdown at 7 p.m. at Beyer-Small '76 Field.
