Furman Men’s Soccer claimed their 21st regular season title this past week after a 2-0 win at Belmont, but their fight for a 15th championship title and a bid to the NCAA tournament begins this Friday. Furman’s performance against conference opponents and acceptance of a variety of honors has gained the squad well-deserved notoriety before the season’s end.

Captain Cole McLagan worked his accuracy magic to secure a key 3-2 conference win over UNCG, marking the beginning of the team’s most impressive streak of play. McLagan converted an early free kick and scored a second game-tying goal before setting up Josh Hosie’s assist on Shaun-Chris Joash’s golden goal in the 6th minute of overtime. McLagan was named Southern Conference Offensive Player of the Week and selected to Top Drawer Soccer’s National Team of the Week for his game-saving performance. 

In the Dins’ second overtime game of the season, Goalkeeper Ben Hale recorded a career high 10 saves against Mercer to give Furman time for a 107th minute winning goal by Joash. He earned Defensive Player of the Week and secured his third shutout in seven starts this season. 

Hale’s and McLagan’s honors and the team’s dominating performances against VMI combined to push Furman into a 24th place ranking in last week’s Top Drawer Soccer Division 1 Top 25. The team’s top-scorers Jake Raine and Shaun-Chris Joash each claimed their fifth goal of the season, which combined with Giovanni Lagnerini’s two goals, an own goal from the Keydets and Freshman Zayne Zezulka’s first collegiate goal to cap off a 6-0 win at home on Senior Night.

After securing an outright Southern Conference title in a 2-0 win against Belmont, the Dins gave new blood the chance to compete in their regular season finale against Wofford. Redshirt Freshman Goalkeeper Ben Roberts made his first career start and played all 110 minutes into double overtime with seven saves. His breakout performance extended Furman’s nearly 430 minutes of total play without an opposing score and made Furman’s 0-0 draw possible.  

Furman closed out their season at 7-1-1 overall and stayed unbeaten at home and in conference play at 5-0-1. The Dins will host Belmont this Friday evening for a semifinal matchup in Stone Stadium and look to move forward as the hosting team in the championship game the following weekend.