JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The Carson-Newman men's soccer team (10-2-1) caps the nonconference portion of its schedule as it takes a trip up Interstate-81 to face the King (Tenn.) Tornado (5-5-2) Wednesday afternoon in Bristol at 1 p.m. at Parks Field.
The Eagles hit the road after a two-game home stand where C-N knocked off two ranked opponents by a combined score of 7-1. King enters the contest after a 2-1 overtime win over North Greenville on Saturday and are fourth in the Conference Carolinas standings.
Last season, the Tornado upset Carson-Newman 3-2 at McCown Field in C-N's home opener; in the span of 14 minutes, King tallied three goals and withstood an Eagle offensive onslaught for the win. King has never beaten Carson-Newman in back-to-back matches. The only time the Tornado have not loss in consecutive matches against the Eagles was at the beginning of the series when King won the first meeting and played to ties in the next two. From 1997 to 2006, C-N won seven-straight contests between the two programs.
King has loss to its previous two South Atlantic Conference matches of the season as the Tornado fell to Tusculum 3-0 to open the season and dropped a 3-2 overtime decision to Queens six days later. Carson-Newman is facing 2-0 against Conference Carolinas foe with wins over Belmont Abbey and Lees-McRae.
The Tornado are led offensively by junior midfielder Chris Hicks who has seven goals on the year. No other King player has more than two goals. Ryan Murphy and Luis Calderon each have four assists to lead the team.
Kari Sveinsson has made all 12 starts in goal for the Tornado and has allowed 20 goals and has a 1.67 goals against average on the year. Sveinsson has made 48 saves and owns a .706 save percentage. Cameron Sauro has made two appearances.
Since 2010, Carson-Newman is 11-4 against foes from Conference Carolinas with two wins in 2015 coming against Belmont Abbey and Lees-McRae; both of those contests ended in clean sheets for the Eagles while C-N complied eight goals.
Senior Nick Skoda (Knoxville, Tenn.) scored a hat trick against the Crusaders, but has missed six of the team's last eight contests due to an injury. He appeared against both Young Harris and Wingate and played 47 minutes. Even though he has missed a good portion of the season, the senior has the fifth-most goals on the year with five. He tallied an assist in the 3-0 win over the Mountain Lions last Wednesday.
Carson-Newman owns the series record 17-3-3 and have won four of the last five matches in the series. At Parks Field, the Eagles are 8-0-1 with the best result coming from a 5-0 win in 1997.
The Eagles and Tornado kick off at 1 p.m. on Wednesday from Bristol. Stats and a recap will be available on cneagles.com after the contest.
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