Despite possessing a one-goal lead at halftime of its non-conference men's soccer game with D'Youville College, the members of the Keuka Storm were not satisfied with their performance.

Coming off the first loss of the 2011 season, the Storm wanted to send a message in the second half of its game against D'Youville, and freshman midfielder Austin Gerber (Rochester, NY/Churchville-Chili) helped deliver that message just 22 seconds into the second half.

Just before Keuka took to the pitch for the second half, head coach Matt Tantalo and Gerber had a conversation where, according to Gerber, he was instructed to take more shots, and Gerber listened.

Moments after moving the ball into the D'Youville zone following the second half restart, Gerber, who prefers to shoot with his right foot, wound up and ripped a beautiful 35-yard screamer with his left foot that sailed high over the keeper's hands and into the upper-right corner of the net for a 2-0 lead.

Keuka went on to win 3-0 as Gerber, junior Nate Smith (Hilton, NY/Hilton) and sophomore Nate Schreiber (Hilton, NY/Hilton) all scored goals for the Storm (4-1), who outshot D'Youville (1-5) 21-9 and enjoyed a 10-6 edge in corner kicks.

"In the first half, we didn't get on our opportunities and we knew we had to convert on our good opportunities," said Gerber, who scored his first career goal at Keuka in the 46th minute.

"We were pumped up coming out of halftime and we told ourselves that we can and we will score more goals in the second half. I saw I had a lot of space and after I made one touch, I saw the goalie was out of position so I fired and at first I thought the ball would sail over the goal. But at the last second I got the ball to dip and it went in."

After delivering the back-breaking goal, Keuka came to life and began applying good pressure while on defense. Offensively, the attack seemed to receive a boost from Gerber's sensational seeing-eye goal, as the Storm began peppering D'Youville goalie Matt Smith with a barrage of solid shots.

However the score remained 2-0 until the 61st minute, Smith collected a loose ball, sent a short pass to himself and banged home a header for his team-leading fourth goal of the season.

For the Storm, it was a confidence-inspiring win, especially after a disheartening 2-1 loss at Penn State-Abington on Sunday afternoon. In that game, Keuka couldn't hold onto a 1-0 halftime lead and fell for the first time this year.

"We got a lot of momentum from my goal and we definitely carried that momentum forward," Gerber said. "Nate's goal was amazing, for him to flick the ball over the keeper's head, then regain possession and score on a header, that was an awesome goal. We came in knowing we needed to recover from the weekend, and we don't have another game for 10 days so we really wanted to head into this break with some momentum. A 3-0 win is all we can ask for."

Facing the Spartans, Keuka once again jumped to an early lead. After several good looks on goal that didn't yield a goal, in the 37th minute, Smith played a ball from the near side of the box to a streaking Schreiber. In heavy traffic, Schreiber got his knee on the ball and scored past a diving goalie for a 1-0 lead.

Gerber's goal pushed the lead to 3-0 and Smith finished off the scoring with his goal 15 minutes later. For Smith, all four of his goals have come at home.

Junior Derek Condon (Webster, NY/Webster Thomas) made four saves and freshman Shane Bly (Rochester, NY/Greece Arcadia) made one save to finish off Keuka's second shutout of the year. Defenders Reis Cunningham (Red Creek, NY/Red Creek), Justin Ryan (Dryden, NY/Dryden), David Caramella (Oswego, NY/Oswego) and Franklin Koehler (Bath, NY/Bath) helped keep things clean in front of Condon and Bly.

Keuka improved to 3-0 at home while D'Youville fell to 0-5 in road/neutral site games. The Storm is off for 10 days before returning to action with a pair of home games Sept. 24 and 25 against Gallaudet and Penn State-Harrisburg.