The Elon University men’s soccer team, fresh off their second straight Southern Conference tournament championship, has learned their fate in the NCAA Tournament and will open with a road game at Coastal Carolina University, an opponent the maroon an

d gold know all too well.

The two teams will play their fourth game in the last two years, one of which was last year’s NCAA Tournament first-round game in Conway, S.C., which ended in a 4-3 Chanticleers’ win.

Phoenix head coach Darren Powell said game preparation will be less difficult given the familiarity his team has with their opponent - the coaching staff need only to watch game film from any of the team’s past matches.

“We’ll go back, review video right now of the game we played them this year,” Powell said Monday night after the draw was announced. “(We’ll see) what was good, what was not so good. If I recall correctly we only played them one half that night. So if we go and put two halves of soccer together, with our game plan, I think we can hopefully be successful.”

The team had hoped for a national seed given their impressive RPI and impressive wins over several nationally ranked foes. If seeded, the Phoenix would have, at the very least, hosted the Chanticleers in Thursday night’s contest. If they were one of the top seeds, they would have had a bye until Sunday’s second round.

While disappointed, junior midfielder Charles Howard emphasized the need to move on and focus on what they can control.

“We all had that feeling (that Elon should’ve gotten a bye), but we can’t control what the NCAA does,” Howard said. “They just make the schedule and we just go out there and play.”

Sophomore goalkeeper Nathan Dean echoed Howard’s sentiment, believing Wake Forest University, the team who earned the group’s first-round bye, is equally as deserving of the breather.

“You could say (we deserved a bye), but then Wake Forest beat (top-ranked) Maryland,” Dean said. “So it’d be very difficult to take anything away from them. The RPI is a difficult feel to maneuver around, we know that. It’s difficult to take anything away from Wake Forest because even though we had a good result against them, they’ve had a really strong season too. So I don’t think we necessarily feel aggrieved by (not having a bye).”

To Dean, this year’s team has a far greater chance of doing damage in the national tournament due in part to the Phoenix’s strong regular season.

“I suppose it’s a little bit surprising,” Dean said. “This season has been so different (than last season) and yet we still end up with the same outcome. But that has to give us confidence that we’ve had such a strong season compared to last year. We came into that game (against Coastal Carolina last year) just happy to be there in the tournament, but this year we had a stronger season. So we’re definitely going in with more confidence than we did last year and our preparation is going to be much better than it was last year.”[box]2012 NCAA Div. I Men's Soccer Tournament First Round

Who: Elon Phoenix (15-4-2) vs. Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (18-2-2)

Where: Coastal Carolina University Soccer Field; Coastal Carolina Univeristy; Conway, S.C.

When: Thursday, Nov. 15, 7 p.m.

Result: Winner plays No. 15-seeded Wake Forest University in second round[/box]

Howard knows his team’s focus is on a deep tournament run, a goal agreed upon the first day of practice that hasn’t changed since.

“We’ve been focused since day one,” Howard said. “We know what our goals are and we know what we want to achieve and we’re right in the position we want to be. One of our goals coming into this year was making the NCAA Tournament, and we’re in it right now. So Thursday night is the first opponent in front of us that’s in the way of where we want to go. Come Thursday night, we’ll be ready.”

To beat the Chanticleers, Powell said his team must stay close and, preferably, take an early lead.

“What we need to improve upon is just be sure we keep the game close throughout the ninety minutes,” Powell said. “And hopefully (we) put ourselves in a position to get ahead in that game. The games we’ve played Coastal, the last two times, we’ve never gotten ahead. So I think that makes you play a certain way, so our focus will be trying to get that first goal.”