Contact: Jenna McElroy, Sports Info & Social Media Intern, mcelroy@midwestconference.org

GRINNELL, Iowa – The St. Norbert College men’s soccer team finished the Midwest Conference (MWC) regular season with an undefeated record for their second consecutive MWC Men’s Soccer Championship. The No. 10 nationally-ranked Green Knights will host the four team MWC Tournament November 2-3.
 
St. Norbert will be looking to avenge its loss to Lake Forest College in last season’s tournament. The Foresters enter as the fourth seed but won last year as the third seed. The rematch will take place at 11 a.m. on Friday followed by the two seed Knox College against the number three seed Cornell. The winners will play at 2 p.m. on Saturday for the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
 
The Green Knights are led by the reigning MWC Offense Player of the Year Ben Prange who set school records for goals in a season (20) and career goals (46) this year. Prange’s 20 goals leads the league by seven and his 44 total points is the most by 12. He is complimented by Logan Block who contributed seven goals and eight assists to rank fifth in the conference with 22 points.
 
St. Norbert isn’t only good at scoring goals but also at preventing them as the Green Knights rank first in the league with 11 shutouts on a goals-against average of .34 and only six goals allowed. The defense also gets in on the scoring as two-time MWC Defensive Performer of the Week Dominic DeMaria had five goals and six assists while first-year defender Mitchell Scholz scored both goals in the team’s 2-1 win over the Foresters in the regular season.
 
Lake Forest looks to repeat the upset they pulled off in 2017 led by Lucas Geib who ranks second to Prange with 13 goals and 32 points. The Foresters took the Green Knights to double-overtime before falling 2-1 in early October. Geib responded quickly after St. Norbert took the lead midway through the second half has he tied the score just 37 seconds later. Lake Forest was 17 seconds away from taking a point from the Green Knights before Scholz got the game-winner.
 
The second game will be a rematch of the final game of the regular season when Knox defeated Cornell 2-1. The Rams may still have been coming down from the high of clinching their first MWC Tournament berth since 1991 as they surrendered a goal to the Prairie Fire just 20 seconds into the game. Cornell settled down from there and didn’t allow another goal until the 80th minute.
 
Cornell will look to clean up its game against Knox on Friday afternoon led by a defense featuring three MWC Defensive Performers of the Week and that surrendered just nine goals with a .51 goals-against average and eight shutouts. The defense is anchored by record-setting goalie Jerome Richards who led the conference with a .51 goals-against average and .890 saves percentage as he set the Rams record for shutouts and wins.
 
Knox counters with a team that fired off the most shots in the conference and had five players score at least three goals. Nick Janulis scored the game-winner against Cornell last weekend for his team-high sixth of the season followed by five each from Jun Min and Alessandro Benelli. Benelli is the reigning MWC Newcomer of the Year and leads a defense that allowed just 11 goals and posted 11 shutouts this season. The Prairie Fire also have a record setting goalie in net as Justin Dunn is the new MWC record holder with 29 career shutouts.
 
Cornell looks to continue an historic season that saw the Rams win a program record sixteen games. It will be a tough test as Knox is a veteran of the MWC Tournament as it qualified for the sixth consecutive year though the Prairie Fire last reached the championship game in 2015 where they lost to Lake Forest. The Foresters have won three of the past five MWC Tournaments while the Green Knights have made the postseason 13 times in 16 seasons and won six times.
 
Find all the tournament information and results on the tournament page.