With the first half winding down, sophomore forward Scott Forster took a pass from sophomore midfielder Chris Mast and scored his second goal of the season in the 40th minute to give the Cougars (9-4-1) a 1-0 lead.

Then, with just over one minute left in the half, freshman forward Rockey Cane (left) took a through ball from senior midfielder Adam Pelak and scored to extend MVNU’s lead to 2-0. The goal was the third of the season for Cane.

Less than two minutes into the second half, Forster settled the ball after a corner kick and found the back of the net again to give the Cougars’ a 3-0 advantage.

That would prove to be the final score as freshman goalkeeper Dustin Kaufman registered a win and a shutout in his first career start for MVNU. Billy Herrmann stopped five shots for Franciscan (2-10-0).

“I thought today’s match was a little more than I expected,” said Furey, who improves to 200-146-24 in 18 seasons leading the Cougars. “To their credit, Franciscan really played pretty well for a new program and really made us earn our goals. We also did a great job of moving the ball and creating opportunities. We just didn’t finish as quickly as we would have liked.”

“It was great having our reserve front runners come in and manufacture a couple of goals for us with Scott and Rockey,” Furey added. “That’s good for us as we miss (leading scorer) Adam (Worrall) to have a number of guys that we feel can step into that position and score goals for us. That was certainly a positive that we can take from today.”

“For Scott, I think it was definitely a confidence booster for him getting two more goals,” said Furey. “Steve (Lesmes) and Sheldon (Tugman) both worked hard up front and just were a little unlucky in finishing. Hopefully, that will come next week as we move into a tougher portion of our schedule.”

The Cougars will return to action on Thursday when MVNU will travel to Daemen (N.Y.) College for a non-conference match that will begin at 4:00 p.m.