Early on Monday, Wright State sophomore forward Eric Lynch was named as the Horizon League’s Player of the Year. Somehow, his day got even better.
In the 74th minute of Monday night’s Horizon League quarterfinal, Lynch delivered the game-winning strike to lift WSU to a 1-0 win ending UW-Milwaukee’s season and to send the Raiders to the Horizon League semifinals.
The Raiders will face Detroit Thursday in the Horizon League semifinals. Detroit was the Horizon League’s co-champs. The Raiders are in the league’s final four for the third time in four years.
“Today’s victory was a hard fought team win,” WSU head coach Bryan Davis said. “Milwaukee was probably in the best forms of all the teams in the conference tournament and for us to get this win acquired a huge performance from our team.”
Wright State gave a nearly complete 90-minute effort outshooting Milwaukee 18-10.
Lynch, the NCAA’s leader in assists, did not have any helpers Monday but scored the most dramatic goal in recent years for WSU as he took a loose pass from Michael Hayes and buried a shot past UWM goalkeeper Liam Anderson. For Lynch, the goal capped off a huge day for the Bellbrook native.
“I couldn’t ask for anything better,” Lynch said. “To come in as Horizon League Player of the Year, I am humbled, but then to score the game-winning goal for our team to keep pushing us forward is great.”
Lynch was among three Raiders named to the Horizon League’s first team. Fellow teammates Peguy Ngatcha and Emeka Ononye were also honored. Also, Austin Polster was named to the league’s all rookie team.
“The funny thing is, for these guys, it is not about one guy,” Davis said. “Eric is a special talent but this team is specially talented with special people. Eric’s function, he does extremely well with scoring goals and gets assists.”
In last month’s match between Milwaukee and Wright State, WSU took an early 3-0 lead and never looked back. In Monday’s win, the Raiders had to displace patience in scoring their first and only goal.
“They came in and played really well,” Davis said about Milwaukee. “They have a class group of guys and a great coaching staff.”
Despite WSU having the better chances, the game was scoreless for the first 74 minutes. Senior Joakim Carlsson nearly gave WSU a 1-0 advantage in the first half but his header was called back for offside.
Later in the first half, tempers flared as both teams exchanged a few shoves. While emotions sparked in the first half, the rest of the match went on incident free.
After Lynch’s goal, WSU played some of its best soccer of the match limiting the Panthers offensively. WSU goalkeeper Tyler Blackmer just needed two saves for his seventh shutout of the season.
WSU has yet to be shutout in a contest this year. If the Raiders can continue that streak, it will be the first time in program history the team has avoided being shutout in a game for an entire season.
