With the Division III fall regular seasons nearing their end, things are heating up for Trinity soccer in their first year in the Southern Athletic Association (SAA). Over the weekend of Oct. 24, both the men’s and women’s teams clinched first-round byes in the SAA tournament. Women’s soccer secured a late 1-0 win over Rhodes College on Oct. 24, followed by a 10-0 rout over Millsaps College on Oct. 26. The men played two close games, defeating Rhodes 1-0 and Millsaps 3-1.
A first-round bye in the SAA tournament advance the top two teams directly to the semifinals, where they will face a team that played the night before. Six of the eight SAA soccer teams will qualify for the conference tournament. With the top two teams receiving byes, four of those six teams play on Thursday, Nov. 6. The winners will advance to play the bye teams the next day.
Coming into the weekend in women’s soccer, Rhodes College held one of the two byes as the first-place team in the conference with a 3-0-1 record in the SAA. Sewanee and Trinity were tied in second place at 2-0-2, but Sewanee held the tiebreaker. Of the three teams, only Trinity failed to beat a non-bye contender, tying Berry College 0-0 on Oct. 5.
On Oct. 24, Trinity’s path was clear: beat Rhodes to control their own destiny to the bye. If Trinity lost or tied, they would need Rhodes or Sewanee to lose or tie in one of their last three games. The Tigers controlled possession and the speed of play all game, outshooting the Lynx 12 to five. However, Trinity only managed to get four of their shots on target, three of which were straight at Rhodes’ goalkeeper, Olivia Barfield.
The sole other shot on target came in the 80th minute when a Rhodes player slipped in possession. Junior midfielder Malea Cesar pounced on the loose ball and immediately played it through to her open teammate, first-year forward Lila Brackin. Brackin ran onto Cesar’s through ball, getting there before the on-rushing Barfield. Brackin’s shot soared over Barfield’s head, giving Trinity a 1-0 win and Brackin her first collegiate goal.
“It’s surreal on senior night,” Brackin said. “Doing it for my seniors, it’s just awesome. We needed this after a couple ties. I think it really shows the conference who we are.”
After the game, Head Coach Dylan Harrison broke down how his team won the game.
“You didn’t see any real panic,” Harrison said. “The composure was there. We’ve talked about our confidence, feeling like we’ve been unlucky with some ties. Tonight, against arguably the best team we’ve played, to get that result, it’s huge. Lila came up big for everybody.”
The women’s team then defeated Millsaps 10-0 on Sunday, while Rhodes lost to Southwestern University, guaranteeing Trinity the bye. But the women did their work under the Friday night lights with men’s and women’s soccer alumni in attendance to see it happen.
“This is why you signed up to come to Trinity,” Coach Harrison said. “It’s this moment. A game that’s extremely meaningful, at home in front of our people.”
The men’s soccer team was on the cusp of clinching the bye coming into the Oct. 24 match with Rhodes. They sat of the top of the SAA standings, tied with Southwestern at 4-0-0 with the next closest teams, Oglethorpe University and Berry College, with two wins each. Trinity and Southwestern each needed only one win in their final three games to guarantee Nov. 6 off.
The Tigers set themselves up to get the first of these two wins against Rhodes through a left-footed volley from sophomore defender Alex Baltov, giving a 1-0 lead after 18 minutes. Just 10 minutes later, sophomore defender Jeremy Siau was ejected for a second yellow card. Despite playing almost the entire rest of the game a man down, Trinity maintained their one-goal lead to secure their fifth SAA win.
“It’s the second time this year that we started the game with 11 players and didn’t end the game with 11,” Head Coach Paul McGinlay said. “To our credit, we went 60 minutes defending a one-nil lead, and at long stretches of the game, you would have thought we had the man advantage.”
With the bye already clinched, Trinity won 3-1 over Millsaps. Similar to the Rhodes game, though, it was closer than McGinlay would have liked.
“I think there might have been a bit of fatigue after Friday,” McGinlay said. “In the end, the third goal from Sam [junior forward Samuel Theiss] was a great finish at the right time to put the game beyond doubt. It just shows, in the league, the margin between a lot of teams is small.”
With two byes in hand, both Trinity teams play their final SAA conference games on Sat. Nov. 1, at home against Southwestern. The Trinity men are in action once before then, though, with a home game on Oct. 29 against Mary Hardin-Baylor University at 6 p.m.
