Friday night’s first semifinal match of the GLIAC Men’s Soccer Tournament featured the Ohio Dominican Panthers and the Tiffin Dragons. Although the Dragons did score the first goal, the Panthers dominated the rest of the way, winning 4-1 to advance to the championship.

The nightcap featured the regular-season champs in the Ashland Eagles and the fourth-seeded Northwood Timberwolves. Ashland was 1-0-1 against the Timberwolves during the regular season, the draw coming at home.

The Eagles came out ready to play, and in the ninth minute Michael Kennedy made a run that took him just outside the box before he was chopped down, resulting in an Ashland free-kick. Junior midfielder Kenny Hewitt stepped up to take the kick. He did his best impression of an opposite-footed Cristiano Ronaldo, blasting a left-footed strike that bent away from the keeper and dipped its way into the top right corner of the goal frame.

“I had one in the exact same positioning yesterday in training, and Justin (Nolan) made a world-class save, which put me in a bad mood,” Hewitt said with a grin. “I had to get it right today.”

It took less than a minute for the Eagles to find their second goal, as Mitch Deyhle crossed one in from the left wing for Danny Lusheck, who headed it to the far post to put AU up 2-0.

From there, the Eagles played at the best level that they have all season, putting together a highlight reel of goals worthy of the “SportsCenter” Top 10.

Louis Clark found his way onto the score sheet in the 20th minute with the help of a cross from Lusheck. Clark volleyed the ball into the turf from close range as all the goalie could do was watch it find the back of the net.

In the 25th minute, Kenny Hewitt did another impression of a word-class footballer, mirroring Brazilian Maicon’s goal from this past summer’s World Cup.

“The keeper kind of cheated and came off of his line,” Hewitt said. “It was more of a cross, but if you just put it in there you never know. It could come off a defender, a toe, a head, anything. It just went in and I got lucky, but I’ll take it.”

Chen Tzfania pulled one back to ruin goalkeeper Justin Nolan’s clean sheet in the 39th minute with a blast from outside the box. Nolan played an outstanding game in goal for the Eagles, making five saves in just over 81 minutes of action.

The final goal of the game was a work of beauty between Englishmen James Livingston and Louis Clark. Livingston hit a breaking Clark with a high through ball that all but landed on his right foot six-yards from the goal. Clark tapped it out of the air and past the goalkeeper for his second goal of the game to secure the 5-1 victory and a spot in Saturday’s championship.