Soccer Preview: Streaking Dover Faces Slumping Mountain Lakes

The Dover Tigers will challenge the Mountain Lakes Lakers at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Dover has five straight wins, Mountain Lakes has three straight losses), but none of that matters once you're on the pitch.

Dover's defense heads into the matchup hoping to repeat the dominance they displayed on Tuesday. They put the hurt on High Point with a sharp 5-0 victory. The result was nothing new for Dover, who have now won four contests by five goals or more so far this season.

Meanwhile, Tuesday just wasn't the day for Mountain Lakes' offense. They came up short against Madison, falling 5-0. While losing is never fun, Mountain Lakes can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' New Jersey soccer rankings (they are ranked 249th, while Madison are ranked 81st).

Dover has now won nine of their last 11 games at home. That gives them an 8-3-1 record this season. Those home wins were due in large part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they scored 60 goals over those 11 games. As for Mountain Lakes, their defeat dropped their record down to 2-7.