DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The Embry-Riddle men's soccer squad saw its upset bid of NAIA No. 5 Thomas fall just short on Saturday evening as the Night Hawks held off a furious second half effort by the Blue and Gold to hang on for a 2-1 victory at the Embry-Riddle Soccer Stadium. The Eagles (5-4-3, 5-3-1) fired off 17 shots in the second period, including 12 in the final 20 minutes, but couldn't climb out of a two-goal deficit. Thomas (12-1-3, 7-1-1) kept their conference title hopes alive thanks to a pair of scores that came early in each half.

ERAU wraps up its 2014 regular season on Saturday, Nov. 1 with a road trip to West Palm Beach, Fla. for a make-up match with Northwood at 2 p.m. The Eagles currently sit in fourth in the league table with 16 points, and can finish as high as third with a win against the Seahawks.

Veit Couturier scored the Eagles' lone goal on the night with a little over six minutes remianing when he converted a penalty kick after his fellow contryman Felix Lohmeyer was brought down in the Thomas penalty area just at the 83:19 mark. The Eagles had been applying hightening amounts of pressure on the TU defense over the waning minutes of the contest and Couturier's 14th score of the season finally broke the seal for the hosts.

Embry-Riddle, needing to turn up the offensive force after Antoine Akoure scored the Night Hawks' second goal of the game just 106 seconds into the second period, threw nearly everyone towards the TU goal in the second half, and had several close calls, including a Jordan Thorpe shot that clanged off the left post in the 68th minute, but couldn't find its first goal of the night until Couturier's third penalty kick of the year.

Thomas took an early 1-0 lead in the 13th minute when Jonathan McGrath was played a pass from Severin Abt in the midfield, breaking away from the Eagle defense and dribbling around a diving Nils Carlson to slot home his 10th score of the season. Abt had previously tested Carlson twice in net and the senior goalie made a pair of saves to keep the game scoreless.

Both teams had more chances to score during the rest of the first period, but Carlson made four saves for the hosts while Alex Condell made a pair of stops as Thomas took a 1-0 lead into the halftime break.

TU took advantage of an Embry-Riddle defensive miscue in the opening moments of the second period when Jake Slocombe intercepted a pass in the ERAU defensive third and passed to Akoure who finished for a two goal advantage.

From the second Night Hawk goal on, the match seemed to tilt in the Eagles' favor as the home team peppered the Thomas defense with shot after shot, but ERAU was unlucky in finding pay dirt as Condell and TU survived the attack.

ERAU had a huge advantage in corner kicks (15-5), as well as a 23-14 edge in shots with both teams getting seven shots on frame.

Five Eagle seniors were briefly honored during halftime as Carlson, Couturier, Jason Alvarez, Jeff Bone and Brian Porter played in their final regular season home match.