Men’s Soccer celebrates Senior Day with 3-0 win over Capital

By Wes Mayberry

ADA — The Ohio Northern men's soccer team celebrated Saturday afternoon's Senior Day game in style, defeating Capital 3-0 at Kerscher Stadium.

The victory improves the Polar Bears to 9-6-2 overall and 4-3-0 in the Ohio Athletic Conference while dropping the Comets to 9-5-1, 4-2-1.

Senior Seth Gundlach (Wilmington) had a standout day for Ohio Northern, scoring the team's first two goals.

Freshman Brenden Gervers (Grand Blanc., Mich.) tallied the Polar Bears' third goal of the game.

Senior goalkeeper John Lombardo (Solon) registered his seventh shutout of the season and 23rd of his career, putting him in third place on ONU's all-time career shutout list.

Gundlach's two goals came roughly one minute apart, as he put ONU up 1-0 with 13:14 left before halftime and increased the lead to 2-0 with 12:06 remaining in the opening half.

Gundlach now has five goals on the season.

Senior Levi King (Indianapolis, Ind./North Central) assisted on the first goal, and freshman Ryan Sommerfeld (Dublin/Coffman) assisted on the second goal.

The Polar Bears continued padding their lead as the clock ticked toward halftime, as Gervers found the back of the net for an unassisted goal with 5:18 left until intermission.

ONU took that 3-0 lead into halftime and closed out the shutout by out-shooting Capital 8-1 in what was a scoreless second half for both teams.

Lombardo finished the game with two saves, as the Polar Bears out-shot the Comets by a margin of 18-5 while holding a 6-2 edge in corner kicks.

Following the game, the Polar Bears honored the 15 seniors on this season's roster.

That group includes Gundlach, Lombardo, King, Bryan Kern (Rocky River), Matt Studenic (Wadsworth), Caiman Moore (Linden, Mich.), Cameron Picard (Dayton/Wayne), Joe Bement (Olmstead Township/Olmstead Falls), Jacob Westerkamp (Beavercreek), Djibril Fall (Springboro), Alex Kurtz (Franklin/Fenwick), Jonah Maas (Massilon/Jackson), Joe Monastra (Wooster), Logan Whinery (Westlake) and Jacob Scheufler (Carol Stream, Ill./Glenbard North).

The Polar Bears will close out their 2021 regular-season schedule next week with road games at No. 6 Otterbein on Wednesday at 7 p.m. and at Mount Union on Saturday at 7 p.m.