GAMBIER – The Kenyon College Owls had a successful Senior Day and regular-season finale, defeating the Wittenberg University Tigers 7-1 in Saturday’s men’s soccer game at Mavec Field.
The result ran Kenyon’s NCAC regular-season championship streak to seven seasons.
The championship title was the 13th in program history and gave Kenyon the top seed heading into next week’s four-team NCAC postseason tournament. The Owls hosted a tournament semifinal game on Tuesday at 2 p.m.
Before celebrating another conference championship, the Owls began the game playing with lots of energy. They were able to strike early after working it down the field in the 9th minute. Sam Carson flipped the ball off to Gerardo Martinez, who passed it off to Sebastian Gaese in a tight window. Caron had begun streaking down the other side and Gaese saw him, making a terrific feed for a run-on shot, which Carson successfully buried through the goalposts to give Kenyon an early 1-0 lead.
Carson was back at it just minutes later. A Scott Upton pass set up the speedy Carson to run on to the goal without much defense in front of him. Wittenberg goalkeeper Cooper Robertson came out to challenge the shot, but Carson drilled the ball passed him into the center of the goal for his second score of the game. Less than 2 minutes later, Martinez struck another Owls goal off a Tigers’ defensive deflection.
About 20 minutes later, Kenyon struck again when Isaac Cortez knocked the ball into the top left corner, putting Kenyon up 4-0. The Tigers, for the lone time in the game, had an answer. With less than 2 minutes left in the first half, Wittenberg scored off of a corner kick, ending the Kenyon clean sheet and bringing the score at the halfway point to 4-1.
The Owls did not get off to quite as fast a start in the second half as they did in the first, but they continued to dominate the possession game. They did break through again in the 69th minute, when Alem Duratovic corralled an over-the-top pass in the left corner near the goal. With a quick move, he made his way around his defender and slotted the ball into the bottom right corner. Jacob Lazarus quickly added another goal less than a minute later on a penalty kick that brought Kenyon’s convincing advantage to 6-1.
Kenyon added one final goal to its lead in the 89th minute when Upton followed a defensive clearance toward the Wittenberg goal. Met with three defenders, he nudged the ball past them and gave it another touch down the middle and into the goal, putting a cap on the scoring.
Kenyon outshot Wittenbeg’s 30-9 for the game. Goalies Jack Pedreschi and William Doenges only faced two shots on goal, largely thanks to excellent defensive pressure from players including Aidan Burns, Matt Nguyen and Luke Muther.
The victory improved the Owls record to 15-0-1, completing an undefeated season, and 6-0-1 in the conference.
