MEN’S SOCCER

The Huntington men’s soccer team upped their win streak over Indiana Wesleyan to three with a 3-1 decision over the Wildcats Saturday afternoon at King Stadium. The W is HU’s seventh of the year as they improve to 7-2-2 overall, 1-1 in league play. The loss leaves IWU at 2-5-3 overall, 0-2 in CL action.

When Jake Erlandson and Caleb Sexton team up, it’s a lethal combination. For the second straight contest, Erlandson got his head on a ball served in by Sexton on a restart for what ended up being the game-winner in the 66th minute. The goal is Erlandson’s fifth of the year, the 16th of his career.

The first half proved a stalemate with the Wildcats finding back netting first within the opening 15 minutes when their go to Filipe Mendonca knuckled in a shot from deep. The equalizer came at the foot of Luke Unger who, on a beautiful through ball from Noah Stanford, slotted the keeper far post for the 1-1 deadlock.

Eric Ocock wrapped up the day’s scoring by slipping one past the keeper with 15 minutes to go. James Howard setup Ocock’s first collegiate goal when he got the edge on the left side and slotted it to the sophomore forward who one-touched it for the 3-1 final.

While the Foresters shut out their visitors in the second half, the Wildcats came out of intermission as the aggressors. Coach Lawson credits keeper Gabe Greenfield for snuffing out IWU’s early second half momentum by coming up with two magnificent saves. “If I’m honest with our performance, we did a lot of things really well except for the first 15 minutes of the second half when we let Wesleyan pin us in.

“I credit Gabe for turning things around for us. Despite still reeling from a mistake earlier in the match, he came up with two critical saves that got us back on track.”

Greenfield finished with five saves on the afternoon.

Lawson was also extremely pleased with the quality minutes he got from his non-starters. “We got massive performances from our bench. Reid Burton gave us so much stability in the middle of the park while Jimmy Howard did a fantastic job holding the ball up on top.”

The Foresters are back in action Wednesday for a game under the lights at Marian. Opening kick is slated for 7:30 p.m.