MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The sixth-seed Raven men's soccer team is set to take on 11th seed Auburn Montgomery on Tuesday night in the second round of the 2013 NAIA Men's Soccer National Tournament.
AUM (13-6-1) advanced to the second round with a shootout victory over Thomas (Ga.) in the opening round on Nov. 23.
Benedictine (11-4-2) also advanced with a thrilling shootout victory over Olivet Nazarene (Ill.) as just three opening round games were decided by shootouts.
AUM earned the Southern States Athletic Conference (SSAC) regular season championship with a 10-1 mark. They enter Tuesday's match with a 2-2-1 record in their previous five matches after rattling off a nine-match winning streak that stretched from Sept. 14 through Dec. 25.
Of the 16 teams to earn a trip to the host site and the second round in Montgomery, only the Heart of America Athletic Conference (HAAC) qualified more teams than the SSAC as Martin Methodist (Tenn.) and Belhaven (Miss.) joined AUM. Baker University, Missouri Valley College and MNU all joined Benedictine in the second round.
The Warhawks have scored 49 goals this season for an average of 2.45 goals per match, which gives them a slight advantage to Benedictine's 2.00 goals per match average.
While AUM holds the scoring advantage over Benedictine, they have also given up 33 goals while Benedictine has yielded 19.
AUM has two players with double digit goals, led by the 12 goals of Alan Harwell while Elvar Sigurdsson is close behind with 10 goals. Sigurdsson leads the team in assists with nine while Harwell is tied with Sabastian Wladyko with seven.
Vignor Johannesson has played keeper in 18 of AUM's 20 matches this season and tallied just shy of 1,651 minutes in goal. He has recorded 30 saves with a 1.640 goals against average while tallying 75 saves.
The Ravens and the Warhawks wrap up the second round of play at 6:30 p.m. today. Live stats are available by following the link on the men's soccer schedule page by clicking on "details" or through Benedictine's men's soccer Dakstats page. You can find the link to the pay-per-view video stream on the front page of www.ravenathletics.com or on the schedule page as well.
