Mentor gets Calic hat trick, rolls to rout of Riverside

Sam Calic had a hat trick as Mentor bombarded its way through its regular-season finale with a convincing 6-0 rout of visiting nonconference foe Riverside on Oct. 13 in the Cardinals’ Kick for the Cure match.

There wasn’t much not to like for Mentor (5-9-2), which enjoyed a 22-0 advantage in shots on target, generated 11 corners and were dominant in possession and attacking flow against the Beavers (6-8-1).

After scoring nine goals in their prior 11 matches, the Cardinals clicked beautifully in the offensive third in the last 72 hours with nine goals combined in this win and a 3-0 victory over Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin.

“We play a tough schedule,” Mentor coach Mike Sesar said. “Minus St. Ignatius, we’ve played a lot of state-ranked teams, and we’ve tested ourselves. As you can see from today’s performance, the flow, the attacking, getting into spaces — I mean, 22 shots, 6-0 win. (Riverside) tied Willoughby South, 1-1, on (Oct. 9), going into district.

“You saw what kind of performance we had today. Again, that’s with chances after chances after chances. I thought it could have been even more today, so I was very, very, very happy.”

Amid a 0-0 match in the 28th minute, Calic opened the Cardinals’ account. Jake Sterio served in a diagonal chip, and the senior striker connected for a lovely glancing header. Then in the 30th, Jake Mlakar capped a nice hustle run off the ball to get a touch wide left and crossed for Calic, who slotted a quality one-time volley near post.

After a well-executed set piece, with Mlakar’s corner hammered in on an Isaiah Brown unmarked header and Calic rounding out his hat trick in the 54th, the result was well in hand up, 4-0.

Calic now has 10 goals on the fall, getting 30 percent of his season output in one on-form afternoon.

“Crossing the ball and finding the back of the net is pretty much all we needed to do,” Calic said of finding attacking flow.

“The first (goal) was a long ball from Sterio. He played it from about midfield. The ball is coming to me. I’m facing the goal, and I just flicked it off my head back and it’s in. The second one, Jake Mlakar plays a beautiful cross. It bounces first and I hit it first-time with my laces, and it just goes in the top corner. The third one, another cross from Mlakar, the goalie was off his line and I snuck it in with my right foot.”

Coming soon

For more from this match, check back in the coming days on News-Herald.com and in our print edition.