HARROGATE, Tenn. – The Railsplitters scored twice in the first half and withstood the Coker Cobras down the stretch to pick up a 2-1 win in South Atlantic Conference soccer action on Saturday at the LMU Soccer Complex.
Lincoln Memorial (8-4, 4-3 SAC) looked to be in cruise control after establishing a 2-0 halftime cushion and outshooting Coker (5-5-1, 3-4 SAC) 11-2 through the first 45 minutes of action, but the Cobras scored early in the second half and put the final outcome in question before ultimately coming up a bit short.
With the win, Lincoln Memorial improves to 3-0-2 in the all-time series against the Cobras and pushes its winning streak to three games dating back to a 6-1 win over Lees-McRae on October 5.
The Railsplitters took the lead in the 10th minute, as
Ronaldo de Jesus (Campinas, Brazil) finished off a perfectly-place corner kick from
Danilo da Silva (Campinas, Brazil). The goal was the third of the season for de Jesus, while da Silva notched his fifth assists of the year off the set piece.
Sophomore
Victor Peres (Brasilia, Brazil) increased the Railsplitters' lead to 2-0 in the 25th minute after beating his defender with a couple of nifty moves and blasting it past the Cobra keeper. It was Peres' fourth goal of the season and his second in as many games, as he tallied the game-winning goal in overtime against Newberry.
The Cobras were outshot 11-2 in the first half, but turned things around in the second stanza, allowing Lincoln Memorial to muster just a 7-5 edge over the final 45 minutes of action.
Coker trimmed the deficit in half on a goal by Aladdin Elfares in the 61st minute, however, that would be the extent of the damage. Elfares did almost everything by his lonesome on that score, which was his seventh of the season, as he won a free ball outside of the box and maneuvered around the LMU defense to put himself in space in front of LMU keeper
August Ahlin (Stockholm, Sweden), who had little to no chance of stopping the one-timer.
Ahlin finished with two saves in the match and came up with a big stop on a shot by Elfares in the 76th minute, which would have drawn the match even at 2-2. The freshman netminder improves to 8-4 on the season with the victory.
Peres paced Lincoln Memorial with five shots and two shots on goal, while da Silva and
Diego Zannoni (Ferrara, Italy) had four shots apiece.
Coker's Michael Ritterbeck was tagged with the loss after allowing two goals and making five saves over 90 minutes of action. Elfares and Alvaro Urena led the Cobras with two shots apiece.
The Railsplitters will play three of their final four regular-season matches on the road, a stretch that begins on Wednesday, October 19, when they travel to Mars Hill, N.C. to take on the Mars Hill Lions at 7:30 p.m.
