JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Top-seeded Carson-Newman begins the 2021 South Atlantic Conference Men's Soccer Spring Championship against eighth-seeded Lincoln Memorial on Monday night at McCown Field.
For the second-straight season, Carson-Newman (6-1-1) enters the postseason tournament as the top team in the field after closing up the regular season with 15 points. It was 5-1 throughout the conference slate with the lone loss being to Lincoln Memorial (2-4) on February 25. In SAC postseason play, C-N has gone 17-26-2 all-time.
This will be the third time in the past four seasons that head coach Stephen Lyons' team opens postseason action on the banks of Mossy Creek. The group has lost both of the previous two quarterfinal home matches, falling to eighth-seeded Coker in the 2019 SAC Tournament, 5-1, and seventh-seeded Queens in 2017, 3-2. Since 1995, C-N has hosted 18 quarterfinal matches, going 10-8 in that span, winning just two of the last six. The last opening-round victory came in 2018 with a 2-1 win at Queens as the No. 7 seed. The last one to happen on the home pitch was a 4-0 victory over Brevard on Nov. 3, 2015.
Since that loss, head coach Stephen Lyons team was full-steam ahead, closing the season on a five-match winning streak, all in shutout fashion. All-told this season, the group grabbed a league-best six clean sheets throughout the season thanks to the monstrous efforts by goalkeeper Bram Kaarsgaren (Den Bosch, The Netherlands) and the entire defensive unit. As a whole, C-N has allowed the fewest goals this season in the SAC with two, one of those coming in conference play. The team has not allowed an opposition goal in 512:14 of gameplay.
The junior leads the SAC with a .909 saving clip and a 0.25 goals against average. At present standing, that goals against average stands as the best for a single season in program history. He is one shutout away from standing alone at the fourth-most career clean sheets in program history, currently holding 10.1.
While the defensive has been top-notch, C-N heads into the tournament as the SAC's top offensive team, sending out 139 shots with 17 goals and 19 assists, leading the league in all three categories. When it comes to shot attempts, the top three players in the league are clad in Orange and Blue, led by Harry Whitehead (Oxford, England) with 34 chances. He is followed by Thaylan Silva (São Paulo, Brazil) and Theo Hardenby Öhrwall (Stockholm, Sweden) with 26 and 23 shots, respectively.
Öhrwall has played an integral part in the offense in his freshman campaign, leading the team in overall points with 11, tying him for third in the SAC. He has scored three goals and has been credited with five assists. In the regular-season finale at Mars Hill, he had the assist on all three of Carson-Newman's goals, making him the fifth Eagle to do so and tying him for the second-most for the program's single-game records list.
This is the first postseason meeting between C-N and LMU since 2012 when C-N fell 1-0 in overtime of the semifinals. Overall, the teams have met five times before this evening's contest with Lincoln Memorial winning each of those by a combined 9-2 advantage with three of the meetings being clean sheets. Three of the postseason contests came in the SAC Tournament.
The 36th meeting between the two sides will be the third of the season with teams going 1-1 in the series thus far. C-N rebounded from that 1-0 February loss with a 1-0 victory of its own on March 18. A scoreless deadlock through the first 67 minutes came to a close when Gabe Martin (Corryton, Tenn.) provided an assist to Nic Carsh (Newberg, Ore.) that put C-N ahead for good.
Lincoln Memorial earned the No. 8 seed in the Spring Tournament with six points, sitting at third in the Pod 3 standings. It closed the season on a two-match losing skid, falling in four of its final five matches, two of those being in a sweep at the hands of Mars Hill. When playing away from Harrogate, Tenn. this year, LMU was 1-3 with the lone win being at Carson-Newman.
Lincoln Memorial has scored the third-fewest goals in the SAC this season with four. It holds the lowest shots per game clip at 6.3, sending out 38 attempts in his six matches played.
Shanden Vergara leads LMU with five points on two goals and an assist this year. He has also been the leading shot-taker with 11 attempts, six of those falling on frame. The group's 19 saves are fourth-most in the league.
Robin Hermann has been the primary keeper in front of the net through both of the first games of the season, starting in all six contests. He has made 29 saves, the second-most in the league, with nine goals allowed and 86 shots faced.
Monday's quarterfinal match is set to start at 7 p.m. from McCown Field. A live broadcast will hit the airwaves of cneagles.com/live courtesy of the Eagle Sports Network with in-game updates via @CNathletics on Twitter.
