HAMILTON — Colgate men's soccer dropped a pivotal Patriot League match on Saturday evening, falling to the Navy Midshipmen, 1-0, while celebrating the class of six senior student-athletes. 

"I'm definitely disappointed with the result, but I thought our team had a complete performance despite giving up the goal late in the first half," Head Coach Erik Ronning said. "I thought we played very well for the full 90 minutes, which makes it a little more disappointing, but we had our chances to take the lead early and equalize later on." 

The Raiders controlled possession and tempo out of the gate despite being outshot 3-0 through the first 28 minutes. After Aidan Wright's shot was blocked, Ronning's group saw their best chance of the night at the 32-minute mark. 

It came from Cason Stafford, who put in an excellent 66 minutes off the bench, playing a through-ball to Mason Pahule inside the box. The junior midfielder kept possession while hurdling a defender, sending a dangerous pass across the box just feet in front of Navy's keeper, but no one was home to tap it in. 

Colgate instead settled for a deep strike from defender Jacob Blackwin who overlapped late, but the shot was blocked before it made its way inside the box. 

The Raiders fired off four unanswered shots through the rest of the first, including a Drew Stephans shot on goal that came from another beautiful right-footed through-ball from Stafford, but the Midshipmen escaped unscathed. 

The visitors were able to counter, however, scoring the only goal of the night against the pace of play just seconds before halftime. 

"It was one of those games that was going to come down to one play and Navy made that play," Ronning said. 

The two squads would play an incredibly even second stanza with Navy logging five second-half shots to Colgate's four. Colgate began pushing up late to find the equalizer, earning two promising corner kicks in the final five minutes, but Navy held strong to escape Beyer-Small with its third Patriot League win of the season. 

UP NEXT
The Raider's postseason aspirations will hang in the balance as they travel to Worcester, Mass. on Wednesday night for a date with the Crusaders of Holy Cross. Kickoff for the regular season finale is slated for 7 p.m.