BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The first goal of the year from Danny Gonzalez in the 38th minute helped lift the Lehigh men's soccer team to a 1-0 win over visiting Saint Francis (Pa.) on Tuesday evening. Making his second career start in goal, freshman Will Smith made three saves to grab his first career win and shutout.

"We had guys step into different roles tonight and had two freshman make their first career starts and I thought they did a great job of competing at a high level tonight," said head coach Dean Koski. "I feel really good about how our upperclassmen helped out our freshmen tonight and also how they raised our level of play overall. We got contributions at every level and that is going to be really important moving forward."

One of those players who stepped into a new role tonight was Gonzales, who played more of an attacking role rather than his usual defensive-minded assignment. He opened the scoring for Lehigh late in the 38th minute when Jack Miskel took a pass from Doyle Tuvesson and one touched it into the left side box to Gonzalez, who slid a shot across under the keeper and into the bottom right corner to give the Mountain Hawks the 1-0 lead.

Each team registered five shots in the opening frame, with Lehigh holding a 3-1 advantage in shots on goal. Saint Francis tallied all five of the corner kicks attempted in the opening frame.

The Mountain Hawks came mere inches away from a two-goal advantage early in the second half, but were denied twice by Saint Francis keeper, Marcus Rojas. In the 62nd minute, Tuvesson delivered a pass across the top of the box to an open Oscar Greene. With no defenders in front of him, Rojas came out of the net quickly to make a sliding save. The ball ricocheted towards the right to Kevin Klinkenberg, who settled it and got off a shot that was deflected toward the goal by a Red Flash defender, and then knocked out of bounds by Rojas, who scrambled back towards the open net to knock the ball off the goal line.

Tommy Dokho gave Lehigh another chance with a 72nd minute header from in close, but Rojas was there for another save.

Gonzalez had another chance in the 82nd minute when he dribbled through a defender on a breakaway attempt from the right side, but had his shot deflected wide.

Smith made two of his three saves in the second half to preserve the shutout win. Lehigh outshot Saint Francis for the game, 11-10, and held a 7-3 advantage in shots on goal.

Lehigh will return to Patriot League play their next time out on Saturday afternoon at Colgate. Kickoff in Hamilton, N.Y. is set for 4:30 p.m. on the Patriot League Network.

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