LMU's Run At National Championship Ends In Final Four

PENSACOLA, FL – With a region championship and an Elite 8 win under their belt, the Lincoln Memorial University men’s soccer team’s bid to win its first national championship came to an end Thursday evening at the hands of defending national champion Fort Lewis College.

Lincoln Memorial went toe-to-toe with the nation’s #2 ranked team for ninety minutes of play but suffered only their second loss of the season, losing by a margin of 4-2 by the game’s end to finish the year at 15-2-3.

The Skyhawks (21-1-1) drew first blood in the battle of NCAA Division II Titans.  An LMU foul gave Fort Lewis’s Ryan Kerr a free kick from about 35 yards out and teammate Cliff Wilmes put a head on it, sending it to Chase Mikkelsen who also used a head shot to get the ball past LMU’s Brent Cole (Knoxville, TN) with around three minutes left in the half.

After taking the 1-0 lead into the intermission, the Railsplitters found the equalizer only four minutes into the second period when freshman Leandro Pereira (Brasilia, Brazil) scored to give the Railsplitters new life.

The score now 1-1, LMU took the offensive and the momentum with their first goal of the match.  Less then 10 minutes after tying the score, Railsplitter defender Felipe Nogueria (Uberaba, Brazil) found Pereira again on a free kick and Pereira trickled it past the Skyhawk goalkeeper to put the Splitters on top 2-1 with approximately 30 minutes remaining.

Now leading for the first time and starting to sense a reality of playing in a national championship, the Railsplitters controlled the tempo of the until the seventy-second minute when Fort Lewis’s Ben Gantenbein placed a free kick between the posts to tie the match again at 2-2.  

With the match unfolding as you would expect from two of the nation’s top ranked teams, things developed into somewhat of a defensive struggle until the eighty-second minute when LMU was whistled for a hand-ball in the box.  The foul gave the Skyhawks a penalty kick and although Railsplitter goalkeeper Brent Cole anticipated the right direction of the shot, the blast was low and had enough on it to get past him and into the back of the net.  The goal put Fort Lewis on top again 3-2 and took the wind out of the Railsplitters' sails.

Now trailing by a goal and time working against them, Lincoln Memorial was forced to play thin in all parts of their defensive formation.  The extra burden of the deficit combined with being nearly physically exhausted eventually proved to be too much to handle and the Skyhawks managed to tack the final nail in the coffin in the closing minutes to emerge with the 4-2 win.  The victory affords FLC a chance to defend their national title against #1 Dowling College on Saturday in the Division II NCAA finals.

The Railsplitters end the year as one of the nation’s top four teams and have a trail of accolades behind them from this season’s play.  For seniors Diogo Silvy (Santa Catarina, Brail), Jon Williams (Memphis, TN), Adriano de Moraes (Jacarei, Brazil) and Drew Payne (Knoxville, TN), their careers end in the NCAA Division II Semifinals but their legacy will live on in future Railsplitter teams with the contributions they have made to the Lincoln Memorial soccer program.