Women’s soccer entered Saturday’s Southern Conference tournament quarterfinals match against Western Carolina as the top-seeded team, posting the best regular season record at 14-3-2 and 8-1-1 in conference. Behind a two-goal brace from Stephanie DeVita and India Robinson’s 17th assist of the season, the Paladins dispatched the Catamounts 2-0 for their 15th win of the season. Robinson is now in second place in women’s soccer school history on the regular season assists list. DeVita is following up her standout freshman season with another solid campaign. Now with 14 goals and seven assists for the year, she leads the conference in points with 35.
The rest of the tournament will be hosted by Wofford in Spartanburg, S.C., where the Paladins will take on the winner of the Samford/Appalachian State matchup Friday night. The Paladins are in top form heading into this semifinal matchup and hope to take any decisions out of the NCAA tournament selection committee’s hands by securing the SoCon’s automatic berth, which they would receive by winning the conference tournament. Despite dominating their schedule, the team is not projected to necessarily be within national tournament field according to TopDrawerSoccer.com or the NCAA’s official RPI ranking. However, winning these next two games would secure the team’s position in the national tournament.
The men’s team has had an entirely different ending to their season. After peaking at no. 9 in the official NCAA RPI rankings and reaching the top 15 in a number of other rankings, the Paladins have dropped three straight decisions. After losing their final non-conference and road game at Georgia State 2-0 in Atlanta, the team returned home for two final Southern Conference matchups against Georgia Southern and Wofford.
The team started slow against the GSU Eagles, allowing a goal and not applying the same pressure they’d applied against weaker teams earlier in the season. To compound matters, goalkeeper Sven Lissek, one of the national leaders in goals allowed average and shutouts, appeared to injure his hamstring taking a goal kick and was forced to come out of the game. Late in the game freshman defender Trevor Haberkorn scored his first career goal in a style reminiscent of Furman soccer alumni Walker Zimmerman, rising above the crowd in the box on a set piece to send the ball into the net and the game into overtime. However, only a couple minutes into overtime, a GSU striker floated a ball over the head of backup goalkeeper Trent Johnson.
With Lissek still unavailable, the team looked equally unimpressive against Wofford on senior night. Although Furman entered the game with a 33-8-3 record all time against the Terriers, Wofford held the top seed in the Southern Conference this year and had the mental advantage of knocking Furman out of last year’s quarterfinals, ending the team’s season and national playoff hopes. Two quick goals was all Wofford needed, as they held the Paladins scoreless and handed Furman only it’s fourth loss of the year. The season will continue next Friday as the now fourth-seeded Paladins will host the Davidson Wildcats in the quarterfinals. The Paladins defeated Davidson 2-0 during the regular season. Furman is hosting the men’s Southern Conference tournament so both semifinal matchups and the finals will be held at Stone Stadium from Nov. 15-18. With their win over Furman, Wofford secured the top seed, with Elon and UNC-Greensboro rounding out the top three.
