BANNER ELK, N.C. – Playing the same team in less than a week, the fifth-seeded King University men's soccer team squared off with fourth seed Lees-McRae College on a balmy night in the Conference Carolinas Tournament quarterfinals. The Bobcats grabbed a 2-0 lead early in the second half, and the Tornado weren't able to comeback, falling 2-1 to end their season.

Scoring chances were few and far between in the first half, but the Tornado (7-10) earned the first chance in the fifth minute when Eli Carrasco ripped a shot that was saved. After a pair of Lees-McRae chance, Faber Bickerstaffe ripped another shot that was saved by the Bobcat goalkeeper.

After that point, the Bobcats (12-5-1) brought play to the other end of the field, placing a couple shots wide before James Galvani buried a shot from the middle of the box into the right side of the net to give Lees-McRae the lead in the 26th minute. The Bobcats had another chance in the 33rd minute, but the Tornado defense kept the ball out of the goal to keep the deficit at one.

The Tornado had a chance in the 45th minute with a corner in the waning seconds, but couldn't capitalize as the Bobcats went into halftime with a 1-0 lead.

It didn't take the Bobcats long to extend their lead in the second half as James Smith took a high pass in the middle of the box, brought it to his foot and ripped his shot into the back of the net for a 2-0 lead.

The Tornado responded shortly as Kendale Liburd netted his first goal of the season. He took a pass fromHallgrimur Johannsson from the left side and beat the Bobcat keeper to the lower right to cut the Tornado deficit to 2-1.

King goalkeeper Kari Sveinsson came up big down the stretch to give the Tornado a chance to even the score as he made four saves in the final 25 minutes, including three in the final 10 minutes. However, the Bobcat defense only allowed one Tornado shot as they took the contest 2-1 to advance to the conference tournament semifinals.

The Bobcats outshot King 23-8, putting nine shots on goal to King's three that were on target. Lees-McRae also had more corner kicks by the margin of 7-2.

With the loss, King ends the season with a record of 7-10 as they finished fifth in Conference Carolinas with a league mark of 5-5. King's five seniors that played their last career game in the Scarlett and Navy were Luis Alonso, Zachary Clark, Thomas Dube, Daniel Krause and Eric Wilkening.

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