JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. - Three one seeds narrowly advanced to the regional finals of the Carson-Newman Play of the Decade, while a trio of three seeds scored upsets over twos to move on to the final round in the Holt, Sparks, Wilson and Bivens Regions.
The three remaining one seeds all survived scares. Braxton Westfield's one-handed catch, Tyler Stepp's national championship high jump and Tobias Karlsen's volley all advanced by a combined 16 votes. Westfield made it past Devon Moore's 10.12 100 meters by eight votes (a 51.1 - 48.9 percent margin). Stepp staved off Malik Abraham's buzzer beating game-winner against LMU by just four votes (51-49 %) while Karlen made it past 13th-seeded Jason Williams scoop and score by just four votes as well (50.7-49.3 percent). The latter had the tighest margin of the eight matchups in the round of 16.
Westfield will face the third-seeded baseball triple play in the Sparks Region title game. The triple play tallied 53.9 percent of the vote to best Zach Pangallo's game-winning three at Newberry.
Rurik Pereira's bicycle kick edged out Charles Clark's game-tying three against Tusculum with 53.2 percent of the vote and will face Stepp in the Bivens Region championship.
Joao Pedro Dowsley was the lone two seed to advance, the 88th minute national semifinal winner accrued 61.4 percent of the vote over Kennedy Rankin to set the final of the Holt Region against Tobias Karlsen in an all men's soccer final.
The Wilson Region features the lowest remaining seed - Romain Kelly's one-handed catch, which moved past ninth-seeded Jess Fraiture and Helen Seed's save with 54.1 percent of the vote.
It faces off against the most dominant play from the round, Charlie Brown's throw to Ethan Goforth to erase the tying run at the plate and beat Northwood. Brown and Goforth punched their ticket by racking up 262 votes and 69.7 percent of the voting share for the round. The total votes are the most in the tournament thus far, besting Braxton Westfield's opening round total of 254.
Voting will take place this week, starting with the Sparks Region Tuesday.
