The Lakeland University men's soccer team put forth a quality effort against one of the better teams in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference in an eventual 3-0 loss to Benedictine University Saturday night on Senior Night at Taylor Field.

The Muskies held the Eagles scoreless through the first half and were within a goal for more than 78 minutes before the guests scored twice late. Lakeland battled in its final home match of the season before falling to 3-15-1 overall and 0-10 in the NACC.

Aaron Smith (So.-Lake Geneva, Wis.) made five saves in the first half as the Muskies held Benedictine (7-7-1 overall, 7-3 NACC) scoreless for 45 minutes, frequently thwarting any Eagles attempts to attack. Denver Roberts (So.-East Troy, Wis.) and Thomas Sanuk (So.-Milwaukee, Wis.) keyed a backline that frustrated the visitors early on.

Benedictine finally got on the board in the 51st minute when Rajin Bains passed ahead on the right side to Alex Pillath, who shook a defender and then beat Smith inside the near post for a goal. The Muskies had a few opportunities to tie shortly after with Ryoto Kinoshita (Sr.-Kanagawa, Japan) getting close before his first shot went wide and another attempt was high over the goal.

It remained a one-goal game deep into the second half until the Eagles added a second goal at 78 minutes, 20 seconds of the match. Antonio Estanislao fed a pass into the box that Tomasz Kulak poked through traffic into the net for his first goal of the season.

Light rain started to fall at halftime and picked up in the second half, and it played a goal in the Eagles' final goal. From near the left sideline, Kulak lofted a long ball towards the goal that skidded on the wet turf and took a big bounce over Smith into the net with 8:40 left in the match for the final tally.

Smith made nine saves in goal as Benedictine outshot Lakeland 21-4, including a 12-1 advantage in shots on goal.

The match was the final one at home for four seniors, including Kinoshita, John Bentler (Seattle, Wash.), Shosei Suzuki (Tokyo, Japan) and Cheng Xiong (Milwaukee, Wis.).

Lakeland has one more match left in its season this Wednesday at Concordia University Wisconsin at 4 p.m. in Mequon.