DENVER – Fort Lewis scored a goal in each half and kept the MSU Denver offense at bay Sunday for a 2-0 victory in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference men's soccer.
Marshall Metzger scored in the 34
th minute, and Kacey Owensby scored in the 72
nd to help the Skyhawks improve to 5-0-3 overall and 3-0-1 in the RMAC.
It was a tough home weekend for the Roadrunners, who dropped to 3-5 and 1-3 while also being shut out 1-0 by Colorado Mesa (4-1-1, 2-0-1) while losing to two of the three unbeaten RMAC teams. Including last weekend's loss at Dixie State, MSU Denver's league losses have come to teams that are a combined 9-1-1 in league play, with the only loss by Dixie State to unbeaten Westminster and the tie when Fort Lewis and Colorado Mesa played one another.
"We're playing teams that are competing well in the RMAC," Metropolitan State University of Denver coach
Hank Lewis said. "We have some older players who know what competing in the RMAC is like, so we'd like to get more out of them. And we have some younger players and transfers who are just now starting to understand what it's like.
"So it's learning to compete. Our guys are competitors, but I think they are learning what it's going to take on a Friday-Sunday split. We haven't put that together yet."
Fort Lewis had an advantage of 13-9 in shots, but the Skyhawks put 10 of those attempts on goal, with
Alessandro Gentile making several solid saves among his eight total. The Roadrunners had two shots on goal, by
Jerry Gutierrez in the seventh minute and
Sam Funnell in the 42
nd.
"I think we're as technical as anybody in the conference," Lewis said. "This was a very athletic, very physical team, and they've got subs to give. We're trying to play a certain brand of soccer, and it would be nice to have a few more guys to do that."
MSU Denver next plays host to both of the RMAC's Mines teams – South Dakota on Friday and Colorado on Sunday. Lewis continues to see areas of growth for his team.
"We put (defender) Ben Brill in a challenging situation today, but I thought he performed really well in that role, playing in front of the back four," Lewis said. "Some guys really embraced what we tried to do today. Like any team sport, you need the whole crew to embrace it."
