KISSIMMEE, Fla. - The Belhaven Men's Soccer team advanced to the knockout stage of the 2015 NCCAA National Championships with a 1-0 victory of Grace College on Wednesday night at Austin-Tindall Regional Park.  
 
The Blazers, who earned four points in their two games in pool play, clinched Pool C with the win and advance to the semifinals on Friday.
  
After 172 scoreless minutes to start the tournament, Belhaven grabbed its first goal and the eventual game winner on a free kick in the 63rd minute. Lucas Talaveira-Befi drew a foul to earn the free kick from about 25 yards out.

Talaveira-Befi then stepped up and worked the ball around the wall and past Grace's keeper for his 14th goal of the season.
 
Like the Blazers ended game one, the defense started out really strong in the match. Belhaven held the Lancers without a shot for the first 39 minutes in the contest. The shot taken by Grace ended a 74-minute span where the Blazers defense did not allow a shot toward the Belhaven goal.
 
Ben Schaefer collected his third consecutive clean sheat in goal for the Blazers and his fourth overall for the season.
 
"The story of this tournament is our defense," said head coach Carl Griffiths. "Two clean sheets is an amazing achievement and our back line and goalkeeper have been our backbone. We have continued and will continue to rely on all of our players as we collected another team win tonight."
 
Joining the Blazers are the winners of Pool A and B, Southern Wesleyan and Bethel, respectively. Southwestern Christian also qualified as the wild card.

With the advancement to the semifinals, the No. 3 Blazers will play No. 2 Bethel College (Ind.) on Friday at 2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT. Both semifinal matches will be played simultaneously, with the winners advancing to the NCCAA National Championship Game on Saturday.