Tomorrow, Saturday November 5th, the Covenant Men's Soccer team heads to LaGrange to face the Panthers in the championship. Previously this season, the Scots dropped a game in conference to the Panthers­­–– the only team in conference that put a loss on the Scots' record.
 
Jay Patterson and Blake Myers were Covenant's goal scorers from the LaGrange-Covenant match up during CCS regular season. It was not until the final few minutes that the Panthers took the lead to win the game 3-2. The Scots are looking to reverse the outcome this time around and are hoping for another championship title.
 
In order to advance to the finals, the Scots first had to face both the Huntingdon Hawks and the Maryville Scots. Covenant took the No. 2 seed heading into tournament play, so the Scots had the opportunity to play on their own home field in front of their home crowd. Both quarterfinals and semifinals resulted in a win for Men's Soccer, each game with a one goal win margin. The Scots defeated the Hawks 2-1 and Maryville 3-2.
 
In quarterfinals, Whitt Tisdale and Mercer Stout put Covenant on the board. Tisdale scored his eighth goal of the season and was assisted by Aaron Riggs in the first half. Not even a minute into the second half, Mercer Stout scored an unassisted goal, his sixth of the season, to put the Scots up 2-0 on the Hawks. In an attempt to even the score, Huntingdon's Thad Lievens scored his sixth goal of the season as well against the Scots at the 65-minute mark. Lievens scored all three goals against Covenant earlier in the season and was the Scots biggest threat heading into quarters. Eli Honeycutt was the Goalkeeper for this contest, allowing one goal and making three saves on the night.
 
The next tournament game, Will Hicks started on goal for the Scots. Hicks made seven total saves, and allowed no goals to score during the first half. All of Covenant's goals were scored in the first 45 minutes of the game. 
 
After a Maryville penalty, Covenant sent out Defensive Player of the Year Jay Patterson to take the penalty kick. Patterson laced one into the back of the net, high and deep into the left corner of the goal. Just five minutes later, Whitt Tisdale found Keegan Weekley who then sent a straight shot to Kade Theunissen for Covenant's second goal of the evening. The second goal for the Scots came in the 17th minute of the game. As the clock was about to hit 24:00, Theunissen sent a perfect pass to Nathan Laughlin who headed the ball straight past the Maryville Goalkeeper for his first goal of the season. 
 
Maryville put up a fair fight and climbed back in during the second half of the game to bring the score 3-2. Maryville even out-shot the Covenant Scots 21-15, with 10 shots on goal. Though Maryville fought the entire 90 minutes and put forth great effort, Covenant prevailed. 
 
Covenant Men's Soccer has prepared all week for tomorrow's championship game against the LaGrange Panthers and is ready to battle it out for the title. Tune in on Saturday, November 5th at 5:00 PM after heading to the volleyball championship match at 3:00 PM. 
 
Each team will be putting forth stacked All-Conference lineups in tomorrow's championship. LaGrange and Covenant both have six selections a-piece competing in the contest.
 
On Covenant's end, Jay Patterson was named a major award winner for the 2022 season, honored as the Defensive Player of the Year. Patterson is Covenant's leading scorer.
 
To join Patterson on the First Team All-Conference selection is Mercer Stout, Whitt Tisdale, and Aaron Riggs. In addition, Knox Gibson and Will Kenas were selected for Second Team All-Conference by the Collegiate Conference of the South. These six starters have been constant leaders and top performers for the Scots all season long. 

CONNECT WITH THE SCOTS
Be sure to follow the Scots all season long on athletics.covenant.edu and on social media at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for up-to-date scores, news and other information.