Box Score Delray Beach, Fla. – The Columbia College men's soccer team dropped a hard fought contest to American Midwest Conference (AMC) foe Lindenwood University-Belleville this evening by a score of 2-1 in the quarterfinal round of the NAIA Men's Soccer National Championship. The Cougars finish the season with a record of 19-4 while the Lynx improve to 17-7 with the victory. Tonight's match served as both teams first game in the round of 8 in the history of either program.

The two squads split a pair of games this season with the Cougars defeating the Lynx 2-1 during the regular season before falling to Lindenwood-Belleville 1-0 in overtime in the semifinal round of the conference tournament.

The Cougars stuck early as Vadim Cojocov netted his 10^th goal of the season after launching the ball into the upper left hand corner of the net less than two minutes into the game. The next 38 minutes would be a defensive battle for the Cougars, as the Lynx tallied 12 shots with one on goal. Lindenwood-Belleville finally broke through with six minutes remaining in the half as Oriol Morego headed in a free kick struck by Guilermo Chinchilla from 20 yards after a red card was issued to Columbia the play before.

The game would remain tied going into the halftime break with the Lynx outshooting the Cougars 13-1. Cojocov's goal was the lone shot of the half for the Cougars as Columbia couldn't get anything going offensively.

Columbia came out aggressive and had an opportunity to score one minute into the second half as Carter Cox created room and struck the ball inside the box, but Christian Espitia came up with the huge save to keep the game knotted at one. The Lynx applied tremendous pressure on the Cougars from there and would add a second goal in the 66^th minute as Morego weaved his way past two Cougar defenders in the box and put it home to give LU-B a 2-1 advantage.

The Cougars had their best chance to score with nine minutes remaining in the game as Mitchell Conning sent a perfect cross over to Cojocov, but the ball would go wide, allowing the Lynx to hold on to their lead. With the clock winding down, Columbia looked for opportunities to score with Cojocov and Conning posting two more shots, but the Lynx would be able to hold on for the win to advance to the final four.

The Lynx finished the game, outshooting the Cougars 23-7 and put seven shots on the net compared to just three by Columbia. Cojocov had the lone goal for the Cougars and led the team with four total shots. Iain McTurk (13-2) was handed his second loss of the year and posted five saves. The Lynx were led by Morego with two goals and six shots. Espitia (1-1) earned his first win of the season in goal for Lindenwood-Belleville and tallied two saves.

Lindenwood-Bellevile will face-off against No. 10 seed MidAmerica Nazarene University Friday, December 4^th at 5:30 p.m. CT in hopes to advance to the championship game. MidAmerica Nazarene defeated No. 2 seed and defending national champions Davenport University 1-0 earlier today.