PREVIEW: Men’s Soccer embarks on postseason at No. 2 seed Coker in SAC Quarterfinal

HARTSVILLE, S.C. – The seventh-seeded Catawba College men's soccer team kicks off the South Atlantic Conference Championship Tournament on the road Saturday, visiting the No. 2 seed and fourth-ranked Coker Cobras.

Regular Season Roundup

- Catawba closed its regular season on Wednesday, forcing a 2-2 draw with Lenoir-Rhyne thanks to a two-score second half to finish the slate at 6-4-6

- At 4-3-4 in the league, Catawba endured its lowest number of losses in four years, matching the three in Spring 2021

- Bautista Vecchi-Ramello enters the playoffs with a team-high eight goals and two assists while Sebastia Cerda-Tous and Tino Lira have each hit paydirt three times

- In 13 starts, Zak Stiffler has notched a 1.47 goals-against average and a .604 save percentage; Joe Whitney comes in with respective tallies of 1.33 and .625 in 203 minutes of action

Catawba in the Playoffs

- The last Catawba victory in a postseason match was against Limestone in 2021, a 1-0 win on the road in the quarterfinal round of SAC playoffs

- Catawba has been less fortunate in the past two seasons with opening-round losses to Lenoir-Rhyne

- The program seeks its first conference tournament title since 2003

All-Time Series

- Catawba leads by a narrow 7-6-2 margin in the all-time series while the Cobras have a superior goal differential of 30-19

- The blue and white have historically performed well in Hartsville with a 5-1-1 record; Coker has not won a home game against Catawba since 1981

- The last time Catawba faced a fourth-ranked Coker squad, the Cobras were upset in 2-1 fashion (Oct. 2, 2021)

- In program history, the Catawba Indians are 16-54-3 against foes in the Top 25 with a draw at No. 18 Lincoln Memorial and losses to No. 6 Limestone and No. 18 Coker this season

Scouting the Cobras

- Coker claimed a share of the SAC regular season title on Wednesday night, defeating Wingate as Mars Hill battled Limestone to a stalemate

- In national standings, the Cobras have been ranked in the United Soccer Coaches Top 25 for eight of nine weeks this season and have sat in the top-10 list for the past three polls

- The Cobras boast two of the SAC's most potent scorers in Oskar Kaufmann and Frederic Benedix

- Kaufmann stands second in the league for his 11 goals and 27 points, while Benedix leads the conference with 14 assists with the third-best points mark of 22

- In goal, Charlie Walker's 0.76 GAA is good for second among SAC goalies as the junior bears a .704 save percentage

The Regular-Season Meeting

- Back on Oct. 2, Coker outlasted the Catawba Indians to pick up a 3-1 victory at Frock Field

- Vecchi-Ramello had the hosts' lone goal with assists tabbed to Kenny Hassler and Noah Sapsford

- All three of the Cobras' on-target shots found twine as Benedix, Kaufmann, and Jesper Schierholz delivered scoring boots

- Coker had one fewer shot on goal than Catawba, but a trio of saves by Walker held off the blue and white

Follow Along

The match will be streamed on FloSports ($) with live stats on CatawbaAthletics.com.