LAKEWOOD, Colo. – Jordan Lewis has consistently been one of MSU Denver's top defenders the past couple of seasons.
And, since moving to forward for the past couple of weekends, she has also been one of the Roadrunners' top offensive players, too.
The junior scored two goals Friday to lift the Roadrunners to a 2-1 victory at Colorado Christian in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference women's soccer.
"It's been good," Metropolitan State University of Denver coach
Tracy Chao said of Lewis' transition. "She gives us a little bit of leadership up there. She has the ability to create and combine, and she has good balance. And she just has a willingness to do anything and everything she can to score."
Lewis, who had scored two goals earlier this season on penalty kicks, doubled her goal total for the season while helping MSU Denver improve to 6-6-2 overall and to move into third place in the RMAC at 5-2-2.
Lewis' first goal came at the 17:13 mark of the first half, when the ball got past a defender and Lewis crashed and slotted a right-footed shot to the lower right corner.
In the second half, at 54:17, Lewis scored on a header.
Luna Garcia sent a ball wide, then
Kailey Maness served a cross to the left side of the net.
"Jordy split defenders with her run, so she wasn't marked and she basically had a wide-open net in front of her," Chao asid.
The Roadrunners had advantages of 19-10 in shots, 12-5 in shots on goal, and 7-0 in corner kicks against the Cougars (4-7-1, 2-5-1).
"Their opportunities were coming more from the counterattack, but we gave up some bad fouls by not being smart and not having good position," Chao said. "Too many fouls gave them too many opportunities on set pieces."
But there were still plenty of positives.
"We created a lot of chances," Chao said. "Our quality of play was good, our buildup was good."
And, with Lewis up top, the Roadrunners have seemed to come around offensively. That's just in time for a noon game Sunday at 14th-ranked Colorado School of Mines (11-1-1, 7-0-1 before a 5 p.m. game Friday against top-ranked UCCS).
"We've gone from three weeks ago not being able to find the back of the net to five goals (in two games) last weekend and a couple more good ones today," Chao said. "It's a matter of continuing to have confidence to put them in, to taking better chances and finding better windows to finish. I've always liked how we've been playing, and now we're getting points."
