The 2026 season finale between the men's soccer teams of Ashland University and Ohio Dominican on Tuesday (Oct. 27) night at Ferguson Field was anything but uneventful.
Eagle sophomore forward
Tom Woodward scored four goals in AU's 4-2 win on Tuesday, allowing Ashland to finish the season at 7-10-1 overall and 5-8-1 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.
"It was two teams that didn't make the playoffs, so I think it was always going to be more light-hearted, end-to-end," said Ashland head coach
Nick Roberts. "Woody's been good. There was a bit of inconsistency (in team scoring). We need to spread those goals around in the big games. We need to find those goals in the big games."
Added Woodward, "I felt I was playing free. There was no pressure on the game. We all felt going into it we were going to go out there and enjoy it, and that's what we did."
In the fourth minute, Woodward, the conference leader in goals, extended that lead with his ninth of the fall. It was an unassisted tally following a Panthers (1-11-5, 0-10-4) turnover.
Woodward then picked up his second goal of the game and 10
th of the season in the 23
rd minute, on helpers from junior defender
Noel Pataki (third assist of 2026) and freshman midfielder
Freddie Thompson (second assist of 2026).
That marks Woodward's fourth multi-goal game of 2026.
Woodward then completed his second hat trick of the season in the 52
nd minute, scoring his 11
th goal of the fall on assists from sophomore midfielder
Hayden Clark (third assist) and senior midfielder
Sergio Ruiz (third assist).
But Woodward wasn't done. His long-range unassisted goal in the 55
th minute gave him his first collegiate four-goal contest – and his 12
th of the season, the sixth-most in a season in Eagle men's soccer history.
It also is the Eagles' first four-goal contest since
Haruki Kimura earned one on Oct. 9, 2021 at Kentucky Wesleyan.
In the 57
th minute, Logan French got ODU on the board on a penalty kick goal. The 84
th minute saw Ean Encarnacion score to provide the game's final margin.
The Eagles out-shot the Panthers on Tuesday, 24-14, and each team took seven corner kicks. Junior goalkeeper
Jaime Duran stopped three shots in 78 minutes.
"Jaime, he's great," Roberts said. "He's absolutely has been fantastic for us, so we found a good one there."
Ashland has won five of the last six against Ohio Dominican, and the Eagles are 13-7-2 all-time in the series.
