After the Lady Bisons fell in the earlier quarterfinal matchup, the Liberty Flames were looking to clean house in Nashville with another game against Lipscomb; this time the men’s team. But this time around the Bisons had the advantage, winning 2-0 to advance to the ASUN semifinals.
The Bisons are now 2-0-1 against Liberty in this season after they tied with Liberty at home and won on a golden goal from Jake Zec in Lynchburg, both in the regular season.
These two teams have plenty of history across all sports in the playoff realm and this game would be no different with fouls coming on both sides and both teams doing whatever they could to get ahead.
In the first half, the Bisons and Flames managed to be as good of defensive teams as they were offensively, neither of them conceding a goal. The second half however would not be so kind for the Flames.
In the 56th minute, Hayes Wood headed in the go-ahead goal from Scott Gulden on a free-kick from outside 22 yards. With a yellow card coming for the Flames only 6 seconds after this goal the game was heating up on the field.
With continued scoreless minutes going by for the Flames, the Bisons jumped on an opportune corner kick which brought one Gulden brother from the corner to a header from his twin that set up an assist in the box for Honore Kalala for the added insurance and a 2-0 lead.
For Lipscomb, the lead would hold up after the late score and the defense played a full 90 minutes of soccer to shut out Liberty and will go on to play #1 seed Jacksonville on April 15th at 7 pm.
Gallery by Riley Hoag