Two wins in three days on the road to open the 2021 spring season was exactly the way the Fort Lewis College men’s soccer team hoped to start.
Behind goals from attacking stars Loic Jean-Baptiste and Gabriel Legendre, the Skyhawks handed Colorado Christian its second consecutive loss with a 2-1 result Sunday in Lakewood.
The win came two days after FLC (2-0, 1-0 RMAC) scored an 89th minute goal to beat Westminster College in Grand Junction.
“It was a great weekend for us with two tough games,” FLC head coach David Oberholtzer said in a news release. “The guys battled the whole time, and we’re very happy. Something we talked about coming into the season was wanting to be more aggressive in general, and we’re starting to take chances and create more opportunities for ourselves.”
Legendre opened the scoring in the second half in the 50th minute. Andres Hernandez played in a strong pass into the box, and Legendre, a freshman from New Mexico, found the end of it to tally his first collegiate goal.
Colorado Christian (4-2, 0-1 RMAC), which had won its first four games of the season, struck in the 74th minute on a penalty kick from senior Dmitri Fabro of Belize.
But FLC once again found a late-game winning goal, this time from Jean-Baptiste of France. The First Team All-RMAC selection a year ago who scored eight times in his debut season with the Skyhawks scored his first of this new season when he connected after a pass from Legendre.
“It was a good run and really composed finish from Loic,” Oberholtzer said. “And going back to Gabe with the assist, we had talked as a team Friday that we had a number of opportunities to play that final pass that would open things up and didn’t execute it very well. We talked about having a little extra focus and it was great to see the play succeed as it did.”
Peter Byrne played all 90 minutes in goal for FLC and made two saves.
FLC was on the front foot the entire game with 20 shots to nine for the Cougars. Max Collingwood made six saves for the home team.
The Skyhawks will play at home at 2:30 p.m. Sunday against Colorado State University-Pueblo. Then, nationally-ranked Colorado School of Mines will visit April 1.
“We’ve been wanting to make Dirks Field a fortress for us again, and I think when we scrimmaged Adams a couple weeks ago at home that was our first real opportunity to play on Dirks in a really long time,” Oberholtzer said. “We showed really well then, and now with points on the line and us trying to advance to the conference tournament, these next two home games will be crucial games against good teams.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
