Lehigh clinches PL Tournament berth with win

October 24, 2018

LEWISBURG, Pa. — It was only a matter of time until the Lehigh men's soccer team found their rhythm and cracked the scoreboard again this season. The Mountain Hawks needed just one goal to get past Bucknell Wednesday night on the road and punch their ticket for the Patriot League Tournament with 15 league points on the season.

While the Bison ouat-shot Lehigh 12-7, the Mountain Hawks had five shots on goal and the biggest one came in the 57th minute when freshman Josh Luchini notched his sixth goal of the season. The goal ended Lehigh's 387 minute scoreless streak. Luchini had three of the Mountain Hawks' five shots on goal.

?? Josh Luchini scores for @LehighMSoccer and with a 1-0 win over Bucknell, the Mountain Hawks remain in the hunt for the No. 1 seed. @NCAASoccer @WatchStadium pic.twitter.com/k7l2j8sByg
— Patriot League Network | PatriotLeague.tv (@PatriotLeagueTV) October 25, 2018

"It was a great individual effort by Josh (Luchini)," said head coach Dean Koski. "It was a great finish, we needed that goal. Just to break through and get that goal, we've asked both of our forwards to be more aggressive, terrific goal for him and something that we needed."

The Mountain Hawks put a ton of pressure on the Bison defense to end the first half and for the majority of the second half which resulted on increased shot attempts and the Luchini goal. Sophomores Stevo Bednarsky and Trevor Koski, junior Zarin Tuten and senior Mark Forrest all had at least one shot for the game.

Bucknell brought its best effort for the whole game, but couldn't get it done against Lehigh's defense. Nick King, Cody Wax and Stefan Gollisz each had two shots for the Bison. Bucknell had five shots in the first half and seven in the second. Goalkeeper Ryan Ott stopped four shots on seven shots faced.

"Bucknell is a good team and they brought their best and I thought our backs did a nice job managing them," said Koski. "They had a lot of good movement up top and we didn't give them a lot of good looks, but our backs did a great job, I thought it was a great team effort."

Junior goalkeeper Will Smith made two saves en route to his ninth shutout of the season.

With the win, the Mountain Hawks do indeed clinch a Patriot League tournament spot, but are still in the hunt for the No. 1 seed and the Patriot League Regular Season title. They will face off with first place Loyola on Saturday.

"We still have two important games to play, the next one against Loyola, they're sitting in first place," Koski said. "We want to do whatever we can to finish one or two so we need to make sure we're ready to play."

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