After completing one of the most successful regular seasons in program history, the Elon University men’s soccer team looks to continue to re-write the school’s history books with a deep run in the upcoming Southern Conference tournament.

The Phoenix won a team-record 12 games under head coach Darren Powell, including four over nationally-ranked opponents. The team’s five conference wins was good enough to earn them the No. 1 seed in the upcoming conference tournament.

The Phoenix will open with No. 8 seed Davidson University at home Saturday night. A home game is a welcome reward for senior forward Chris Thomas, who remembers his team’s arduous road to the conference championship last year, a road that saw the Phoenix play three higher seeded teams, one on the road.

“The home crowd really relieves the pressure,” Thomas said, “Good thing [Saturday is] going to be good weather, hopefully we get a good crowd out. It feels a lot better to play at home.”

To Powell, a home game is a luxury because it allows his team to follow a scheduled routine before the match.

“The good thing about being at home is you can still do your regular routine, your familiar routine,” Powell said. “Which [means] the day before you don’t have to use as a travel day so you prepare your team as normal, like we have been all year for all the home games.”

Last year’s run to the Southern Conference championship has taught junior midfielder Matt Wescoe to never underestimate any conference opponent, as the Phoenix showed last year.

“I definitely think we need to realize that we can’t underestimate anybody,” Wescoe said. “We were a pretty low seed last year and anything can happen in the tournament. Everybody just competes with each other and everybody shows up and plays their best game in the SoCon tournament so we just have to come and put full games together.”

The Phoenix enters the tournament on a four game unbeaten streak, including three wins and a draw against Atlantic Coast Conference foe Duke. A run Chris Thomas believes is vital to a deep run in postseason play.

“Like it is for every conference, every game [in the tournament] is a battle,” Thomas said. “Hopefully we can keep that [momentum] rolling and maybe get a seven match unbeaten streak going into the NCAA tournament.”

Momentum Powell believes will be important as the Phoenix embark on their title defense against a group of teams he considers much stronger than in last year’s tournament.

“I think it’s going to take even more effort this year to be able to retain that championship because I think this year’s league is maybe a little bit stronger than last year’s, from top to bottom,” Powell said. “So I think it will require more effort from our team to be able to repeat as SoCon tournament champions.”

Wescoe insists the Phoenix have the same “never say die” attitude they used during last year’s run to the conference championship despite now being one of the favorites.

“We know we have to keep that same mentality,” Wescoe said. “At this point, if you don’t win, your season could be in jeopardy of being done but as long as we keep winning we know we have another game to play. And so I don’t think we’ll come out and take any teams lightly [or] take any games off.”

Powell hopes his team can continue to advance through the postseason and continue to send his seniors out the right way.

“I think every college soccer team takes on its own journey,” Powell said. “The journey these guys have taken on this year; the most wins in the program’s history [under Powell], winning the league [and] possibly an at-large bid to the national tournament, hopefully an automatic bid [for winning the conference tournament] come this time next week.  These guys can be very proud.”

Thomas says his team must be weary of the upset-minded Wildcats, who have the same “nothing to lose” mentality the Phoenix had last year when they won beat three higher-seeded teams en route to their conference championship.

“[That mentality is] always a good weapon to have in a tournament,” Thomas said. “That means this could be your last game and you don’t want that to happen but the good thing is this could [also] be the last game for us because we don’t know if we’ll be able to get into the [NCAA] tournament.”