ANDERSON, SC – Carson-Newman (11-4, 7-3 SAC) hits the road to Anderson (10-4-3, 4-4-2 SAC) for its final regular season game and a shot at the SAC title and the no. 1 seed in the league's tournament. The Eagles need to beat the Trojans, for Lenoir-Rhyne to knock off Queens and for LMU to either tie or beat Wingate to secure the number one seed and the Eagles' first SAC championship since 2009.
"We're not concerned with winning the conference championship," Carson-Newman head soccer coach Richard Moodie. "There's a lot that has to happen for the boys to win the conference on Saturday. I'm not worried about it, they're not worried about it. The only thing we're focusing on is Anderson and taking care of them on Saturday."
The Eagles are coming off a big 1-0 overtime victory against SAC rival Tusculum. C-N created plenty of chances and outshot the Pioneers 18 to five.
"The boys are doing well," Moodie said. "We struggled against Tusculum to score a goal, but we definitely didn't struggle."
Sindre Welo (Trondheim, Norway) released four shots, all of which were on target, and supplied the golden goal win 59 seconds into overtime.
"We played well," Moodie said, "we just couldn't score. It took a special score off Sindre Welo and he came up big for us."
Senior captain Rumwald Le Guevel (Vannes, France) tallied up two saves during the game. He is currently second in the SAC in both saves and save percentage with 69 and .802 respectively.
Anderson also beat Tusculum 1-0 on Oct. 6. The lone goal came in the 37th minute when Mattias Schyberg shot the ball over the keeper's head from 20 yards out for his third goal of the season.
On Oct. 26, Anderson tied Wingate 0-0 after two overtimes.
The Eagles lost 2-1 to Wingate in overtime on Sept. 14. Nick Skoda (Knoxville, Tenn.) put in the lone goal for C-N in the 6th minute of action off a ball from Lucas Siqueira (Sao Paulo, Brazil).
In the 89th minute, after a prolonged injury timeout, play resumed with a free kick for the Bulldogs on which they capitalized to send the game into overtime.
Play was postponed against when the lights on the field went out while Wingate had possession. It resumed again with a Bulldog free kick that was again put in the back of the net for the golden goal win.
The Trojans lost 1-0 to Brevard on Oct. 22.
"The ultimate goal for us," Moodie said, "was to see if we can get this team back into the National Championship."
C-N defeated Brevard 7-1. Welo, Ross Frame (Welshpool, Powys, United Kingdom) and Kristian Speake (Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, United Kingdom) each put up two goals and Nico Noll (Esens, Niedersachsen, Germany) had one.
The Eagles outshot the Tornadoes 25 to four. It was the biggest win in C-N history since the 6-0 victory over Newberry in 2004.
Last year, Carson-Newman defeated the Trojans 4-1. Rurik Pereira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) opened the scoring just over three minutes into the game.
Pereira had a goal and an assist on the match. Siqueira put up a goal and two assists, Joao Dowsley (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Ariel Pimentel (since graduated) each had a goal, and Trystan Dafydd (Felinheli, Gwynedd, Wales) had an assist.
Ben Jones had the lone and unassisted goal for Anderson in the 9th minute of play.
"We'll be almost fully fit going into Saturday with the exception of two or three," Moodie said, "so we're excited to get up there and get on the field."
The match can be followed live at http://autrojans.com/webcast.asp.