CMS Men's Soccer Hosts SCIAC Championship against Redlands Saturday

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CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's soccer team, still alive after finding itself just 43 seconds from elimination in the semifinals on Wednesday, will meet Redlands in the 2019 SCIAC Championship game on Saturday night at 7 p.m. at Pritzlaff Field. 

CMS, which was playing up two men for most of the second half after Chapman had two players red-carded, finally broke through for the equalizer when Chase Keir headed in a corner kick from Lukas Huntington with 43 seconds left. The Panthers looked poised to hold on to force penalty kicks, but Tommy Brown scored when his low strike deflected in with 2:51 remaining in the second overtime to send CMS through to the finals. 

The Stags will be meeting Redlands in the SCIAC Championship for the second straight season (with a year off in between due to the pandemic). In 2019, CMS took a 2-0 win over the Bulldogs, with Cole Smith scoring an early goal to stake his team to the lead, and tournament MVP Ethan Tyng adding a second-half insurance goal off a feed from Justin Blachman. 

Redlands moved through to the championship game with a 2-0 win over Cal Lutheran in its semifinal on Wednesday, scoring a pair of first half goals to take control. CMS and Redlands have been 1-2 in the league for most of the season, after the Stags took a narrow 2-1 win over the Bulldogs back on Sept. 15 in the conference opener for both teams. Redlands lost only one one more league game the rest of the way, but CMS never came back to the pack, finishing 10-0-2 in the SCIAC for its first unbeaten league season since 1993. 

The winner will receive the SCIAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament. The Stags, who stand at No. 15 in the nation with a 14-1-3 overall record (and its only loss coming to a non-Division III opponent in Westmont of the NAIA), would have a chance at a bid with a loss, but the last time CMS was in that position in 2018, it was left out despite a 15-2-1 record and the best goals against average in the country, after falling on penalty kicks in the SCIAC Semifinals. In 2019, the Stags had a strong resume, but took matters into their own hands with 2-0 wins over Occidental and Redlands to earn the automatic bid.