Otterbein junior Juan Rivas has been named Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) Player of the Week in men’s soccer, announced by the league office on Monday afternoon.

Rivas, a native of Greenfield and graduate of Edward Lee McClain High School, claims his and the team’s first weekly award of the season after an impressive weekend in which the Cardinals extended their winning streak to four straight.

The Cards opened last week’s two-game slate by topping Denison 2-1 on Wednesday before defeating Earlham 4-1 in swift fashion Saturday behind a trio of goals and one assist from Rivas, who collected his second hat trick of the year.

After assisting on senior Noah Coons’ goal in the 31st minute against Earlham, Rivas flipped the script to net his first score and up the Cardinal lead to 2-0 in the 40th minute. Rivas then added his second score in the 60th minute, before putting an exclamation point on the night with his third goal in the 72nd minute.

All three of Rivas’ goals were assisted by fellow junior Erick Juarez-Manning, who currently leads the league with six assists. Rivas now stands alone atop the team leaderboard and ranks second in the OAC with 16 points and seven goals, while also having tallied a pair of assists so far this season.

Otterbein (6-2 overall) opens conference play this Saturday at crosstown rival Capital. First kick is set for 7 p.m. inside Bernlohr Stadium.

Submitted by Jeremy Morgan, Otterbein assistant sports information director.