Despite going down two goals in the first half and having a man sent off in the second, Colorado College nearly pulled off an improbable comeback against Centenary College on Friday afternoon in a quarterfinal match of the 2020-21 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship.

Ultimately, however, the hometown Gents were able to do just enough to hang on for a 2-1 victory and go through to Saturday's semifinal round where they will face second-seeded Southwestern University.

"I'm proud of the effort the team put forth in the second half," head coach Scott Palguta said. "We really made a game of it. We dug in, especially playing down a man, and created good chances to score down the stretch. Unfortunately, we didn't play the first half with the same intensity."

Colorado College came within inches of grabbing a 1-0 lead on a corner kick early in the first half, then Skyler Stark-Ragsdale hit the back post off a cross from Miles Montgomery in the 27th minute. Those two near misses would come back to haunt the third-seeded Tigers.

Centenary broke through 63 seconds after dodging the second bullet. Andres Bautista intercepted a pass at midfield, took a few touches to get around CC goalkeeper Keleher Felton near the top of the box and slipped a shot from the left side into the open net.

The Tigers nearly leveled the score in the 38th minute, but goalkeeper Sami Borchalli came off his line to deny Luke Sloan's shot from the left edge of the box off of a perfect cross-field feed from Sajjan Singh.

The Gents doubled their lead with 1:24 remaining before halftime when Michael Smith poked the ball between a pair of defenders and Jaden Harmon scored from 10 yards out on the left side of the box.

Despite going down a man a little more than eight minutes into the second half, the Tigers got one back when Alexander Ward settled a clearing attempt by the Gents just outside the six-yard box and rolled a shot through traffic into the right side of the net.

Colorado College applies relentless pressure during the final minutes, but was unable to net the equalizer and slipped to 5-7 all-time in the SCAC tournament.

The Tigers finished with a 24-13 advantage in total shots and generated a 13-2 margin in corner kicks. In the second half alone, CC outshot the Gents, x-x, and enjoyed advantage in corner.

In the first quarterfinal, the University of St. Thomas rallied to defeat defending champion Texas Lutheran University on penalty kicks and will face top-seeded Trinity University in Saturday's first semifinal.
    
   
Colorado College Standouts
Keleher Felton finished with five saves for the Tigers.
Miles Montgomery led CC with four shots.
 
Centenary College Standouts
Andres Bautista led the Gents with four shots.
Sami Borchalli stopped four shots for Centenary.
 
Notes
Colorado College finished the season with a 5-4-1 overall record and a 5-2-1 mark in the SCAC.
Centenary improved to 4-5-1 overall with their first-ever SCAC tournament victory.