Skip To Main Content
Skip To Main Content

Fort Lewis College Athletics

Scoreboard

Tomas Duenes 10.14
Angela Roberts, FLC Athletic Communications
FLC freshman Tomas Duenes (#22) set a school record Thursday for the fastest goal to start a game.
0
CSU Pueblo CSUP (9-4-0, 2-3-0)
1
Winner Fort Lewis FLC (5-6-1, 2-3-0)
CSU Pueblo CSUP
(9-4-0, 2-3-0)
0
Final
1
Fort Lewis FLC
(5-6-1, 2-3-0)
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
CSU Pueblo CSUP 0 0 0
Fort Lewis FLC 1 0 1

Game Recap: Men's Soccer | | David Wilson, Assistant AD-Communications

Duenes sets school record, Skyhawks nab three crucial points in 1-0 win over CSU Pueblo

DURANGO, Colo. — Back on its home pitch determined to end a mini three-game slid, the Fort Lewis College men's soccer team responded with a 1-0 victory over a talented Colorado State University Pueblo squad on a frigid Thursday afternoon in Durango.

"The past week and a half, past three games, have been difficult where we felt we deserved better results than what we got. But I praise the guys because they kept pushing," said FLC head men's soccer coach, David Oberholtzer. "They stayed focused on the job at hand and we found a way to get three crucial points."

Fort Lewis (5-6-1 overall, 2-3-0 RMAC) improved to a staggering 194-58-20 (.750) at home all-time, while also setting a school record in the process.

Just 18 seconds into the game, freshman forward Tomas Duenes pressed up and capitalized on a ball mishandled by the CSU Pueblo (9-4 overall, 2-3 RMAC) goalkeeper Will Whitworth and calmly tapped in his fourth goal of the season what would prove to be the game-winner.

The early score broke the previous school record of 34 seconds for fastest goal to start a game, set by Trevor Gibbons on Sept. 30, 2012 on the road against Colorado Christian.

"That's a huge momentum boost to essentially start the game up a goal," Oberholtzer said. "We tried to come out quick and were pressing high as CSU Pueblo was building out. Tomas was able to get on top of the goalkeeper, who wasn't really ready for him to be there."

Fort Lewis put the clamps on, defensively, from there over the final 89 minutes, forcing the possession oriented ThunderWolves offense to play on the perimeter. The Pack won the shots battle, 13-6, but only put four of those 13 shots on net.

All four chances were safely handled by senior goalkeeper Peter Byrne en route to his third shutout of 2021.

"CSU Pueblo is a very good attacking team. One of our strengths is we're a very good counter-attacking team, so it kind of played into our hands to let them bring the ball forward and create that space for us in the back," Oberholtzer said. "I don't think we gave up any good looks, we were very stringy on defense. We were challenging everything in the air and we were usually the first to anything that dropped down. We did a very good job of staying solid."

Fort Lewis will look to build off Thursday's momentum, and enjoy an extra day of rest this week, when the team concludes Homecoming Weekend with a 2:30 p.m. showdown against the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs (6-4-1 overall, 2-2-0 RMAC).

"The extra day of rest is going to be much needed and trying to get six points out of the weekend is going to be crucial for us, especially with the slow start we had into conference play," Oberholtzer said. "We got three big points today, but just as important are the three points on Sunday. That's the objective."
 
Print Friendly Version