BETHLEHEM, Pa. - In a highly-contested game featuring two teams who played in their conference championship games last season, the Lehigh men's soccer team dropped a slim 1-0 final to visiting Delaware in the Mountain Hawks' home opener on Friday evening. The Blue Hens scored the game's only goal in the 43rd minute. The Mountain Hawks had chances in the second half, but couldn't put one past Delaware goalkeeper Todd Morton.

"Delaware is a really good team. I thought they played well, as did we," said Lehigh head coach Dean Koski. "An unfortunate goal on the deflection, but we need to shoot more in order to score more. If we look back at the tape, we'll find instances where we should have shot. I thought defensively, we were as good as we could have hoped. Our back four was very good, particularly Justin (Worley) and Gio (Gianfranco Giammatteo) were solid bottling their number nine who is a really good player."
 
Worley, Giammatteo and the Lehigh defense held down Guillermo Delgado, who entered the game with seven points through two games (three goals, one assist). Delgado finished the game with three shots, two on goal, but none beat Lehigh goalkeeper Jacob Gottwald, who finished the evening with six saves.
 
Lehigh's first shot on goal came in the 22nd minute when a pass from junior Doyle Tuvesson found sophomore Oscar Greene heading into the box. Greene fired a low shot, but Morton came out strong to make the save.
 
Delaware went on to take a 1-0 lead at the 42:06 mark off a corner kick as Ben Sampson's shot deflected in off a Lehigh defender.
 
Lehigh's best chance came in the 63rd minute when a Tuvesson cross found Forrest open in front of the goal, but the ensuing shot sailed wide. The Mountain Hawks had three shots after that point, but couldn't find the back of the net as the Blue Hens walked away with the 1-0 victory.
 
Final shots were 16-11 in favor of Delaware while the Blue Hens held a 12-2 edge in corner kicks. Four of Gottwald's six saves came in the second half while Morton finished with two stops for Delaware.
 
"I think it's critically important that we try to play the best teams we can play in the nonleague," said Koski. "Delaware is really well coached and, they have some really good players. Every game that we play leading up to the Patriot League should help better prepare us for the league. We like these games. We don't like losing, we're not about that and that's not okay, but I like a good competitive game like this. It was end-to-end at times. But we didn't create enough chances over the course of 90 minutes to be successful."
 
Lehigh will return to action next Saturday (Sept. 10) at Seton Hall. Opening kickoff is set for 1 p.m.
 
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