It was a quick and painful ending, and certainly not what Lenoir-Rhyne men's head soccer coach Tom Gott envisioned Tuesday night.
"That's just soccer," Gott said after his Bears' heartbreaking 1-1 shootout loss to the Tusculum in the South Atlantic Conference quarterfinals. The Pioneers out shot the Bears 4-3 in penalty kicks to advance.
Lenoir-Rhyne (8-7-3), seeded fourth against the fifth-seeded Pioneers, jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the second half courtesy of an Oriol Cortes goal off an assist from Brendan Howard at the 38:49 mark in the second.
The goal was Cortes' fourth of the season, and Howard's fifth assist.
Anteneh Lemma scored the Pioneers' tying goal with 23:07 left in the second half.
The Bears played without their leading scorer from the regular season, Dave Bailey, who was suspended for the match due to his reception of five yellow cards.
"We didn't have Dave and that didn't help," Gott said, "but Oriol came in and did a great job, as did Brendan.
"We were just unlucky. Give Tusculum all the credit, their keeper (Lance Moore) made some big saves and they did a good job of shutting us down."
Tusculum (9-6-1) took the win and will advance to the SAC semifinals to face top-seeded Carson-Newman Friday in Rock Hill, S.C.
The Pioneers won despite being out-shot 28-14.
L-R took 17 shots on goal against Tusculum's six, but Moore logged 13 saves and prevented multiple scoring chances in the pair of scoreless overtime periods to spearhead the Pioneers' defensive effort.
Bears senior goalkeeper Francisco Banuelos posted five saves on defense for L-R, who finished the conference season with a 4-2-2 record.
"(Banuelos) has been great all season, he just didn't get the breaks he needed on the penalty kicks to keep us in it," Gott said.
"I couldn't be prouder of (senior) Gary Higgins, he played his heart out for me tonight.
"Tusculum is a good team, they played very well and were able to capitalize on our mistakes on defense."
L-R's core group of sophomores and juniors that will return to the Bears for next season should minimize the losses of Higgins and Banuelos, Gott said.
"It's not how we wanted to end it for them, but there's a lot to be positive about what they've done. We're really close to contending and I'm excited for what we have next year."
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