OAC Championship Preview: Men's Soccer Looking for 5th Straight OAC Title

11/4/2022 2:59:00 PM | By: Ashley McCall, Senior Staff Writer

The Blue Streaks are on the hunt for another crown and an NCAA bid.

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS -- The John Carroll Men's Soccer team is peaking at just the right time, as the Blue Streaks earned a ticket to the Ohio Athletic Conference Championship game vs. Wilmington on Saturday, November 4 at Don Shula Stadium with kickoff starting at 7 pm.

Following regular season play, the Blue Streaks were ranked second in the OAC, where they received a bye for the first round of the tournament.

Hosting the OAC Semifinals in University Heights, the Blue and Gold were matched up against Otterbein University.

John Carroll defeated the Cardinals, 2-0, just under a month ago on the road and looked to continue this success in the OAC tournament.

But on Thursday, November 3, the Cardinals drew blood first when Drew Holman sliced his way through the Blue Streak defense, placing a perfect shot into the bottom left corner of the net at the 13-minute mark.

The game evened out after this goal with both teams struggling to gain possession for effective shots on goal as the halftime score remained at 1-0 in favor of the visitors.

The Blue and Gold came out of the locker room looking for vengeance and found it in the form of a Hayden Haffner goal as the score tied up 1-1.

With the game ending in a tie, the new overtime rules came into play. The rule eliminates "golden goal" and, instead, requires the teams to play the full two overtime periods regardless of a goal.

In the 101st minute of the game, Michael Kelly was able to head the ball up and over Cardinal keeper Casey Thompson for the game-winning goal as the team held strong for the last nine minutes of the game to earn the victory in the semifinals.

With this victory over Otterbein, the Blue and Gold will now host the OAC Championship at Don Shula Stadium against the Wilmington College Fightin' Quakers.

It's been over a month since the two squads faced off against each other. Once again in University Heights, John Carroll defeated the Fightin' Quakers 1-0 in the regular season matchup between these two teams.

John Carroll pulled away with this victory due to an own goal by Wilmington, as the two teams remained fairly even during the entirety of the match.

The Blue Streaks have momentum coming into the Championship game following their nail biting performance on Thursday, but Wilmington's semifinal game followed a similar scoring pattern.

Ohio Northern struck first in the semifinal matchup and led the majority of the game against Wilmington.

At the 68-minute mark, Sakarias Bahamondez earned his second goal of the season as this score allowed the Fightin' Quakers to stay alive and go into the two periods of overtime.

With just five minutes left in the second overtime, freshman Kyle Jordan scored his first collegiate goal, which couldn't have come at a better time, as he put the nail in the coffin for the Polar Bears and advanced Wilmington to the championship game.

Following the regular season, Wilmington was ranked fourth in the OAC, but has upstaged No. 3 ranked Ohio Northern to head to the championship game.

With both teams hitting their stride at the right time, this championship game will be a fantastic matchup between the two squads.

The winner of the match will receive the OAC's automatic bid to next week's NCAA Tournament. Kickoff is at 7 pm on Saturday.

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