PLYMOUTH, Wis. – St. Norbert College scored an early goal to put the Lakeland University men's soccer team on its heels and the Muskies never recovered in a 3-0 loss Wednesday night at John Taylor Memorial Field.
Lakeland missed an opportunity to further entrench its place in the top four in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference standings and saw its chances for a home game in the NACC Tournament take a hit with the loss. The Muskies now need a win in their conference loop finale on Saturday against Concordia University Wisconsin and then will need help to move back into the top four and a position to host a NACC quarterfinal game.
Lakeland (11-4-3 overall, 5-3-3 NACC) struggled to generate good opportunities for the second straight game and was shut out in consecutive games for the first time this season. St. Norbert (6-3-7 overall, 4-1-5 NACC) didn't have many chances either, but the Green Knights capitalized almost every time they had a good one in their most lopsided result all season for a team that coming in had played 13 games decided by a goal or less and all 15 of its matches decided by two goals or less.
St. Norbert got on the board on its first good chance of the game, as Alex Sada carried the ball across the field from left to right down to the corner. Sada appeared to have run into a dead end but passed to Everett Saeger, who received the ball between two Muskies defenders and struck a shot just inside the right post for a goal 10 minutes, 11 seconds into the game.
The Green Knights then packed in the defense with the lead and Lakeland was largely kept away from the SNC goal until the final 2 1/2 minutes of the half when the Muskies had a pair of corner kicks late. Lakeland trailed 1-0 at halftime, but had two more corner kicks early in the second half, including one where St. Norbert goalkeeper Jackson Kiszka just got a piece of an attempted header by
Andrew DeJaynes (
Jr.-Springfield, Ill.).
The Muskies had chances, but it was the Green Knights capitalizing again in the 52nd minute on their first shot in more than 25 minutes, as defender Kacper Durski took the ball down the right side to the end line, crossed a long pass to Sada who gathered, spun and then blasted a shot that found the right back of the net for a 2-0 lead. St. Norbert added a third goal in the 62nd minute after a failed header clear went to Saeger, who then dribbled between two defenders and shot and scored inside the right post for his second goal of the match.
Any Lakeland chances of a rally took another hit with more than 20 minutes left after a second yellow card on
Yovanni Serna equaled a red and left the Muskies playing a man down the rest of the way. Lakeland still had three shots in a span of five minutes, with
Victor Aguirre (
So.-Sheboygan Falls, Wis.) getting the final shot on goal in the 77th minute.
St. Norbert finished with a slim 9-7 lead in shot attempts and a 5-3 edge in shots on goal.
Ali Faiad (
Fr.-Alexandria, Egypt) made two saves in goal while Kiszka made three saves in 80-plus minutes for the Green Knights.
Lakeland finishes the regular season with its final two matches on the road, first taking on Concordia Wisconsin Saturday at 12:30 p.m. in Mequon.
