Belmont Abbey senior forward Emmanual Yamson scored the only goal of the match in the 68th minute off of a feed from Aaron Weldon as the Crusaders men's soccer team closed out the 2009 regular season with a 1-0 win over Erskine this afternoon at Alumni Field. Belmont Abbey improves to 10-7-1 overall and 4-6 in Conference Carolinas, while Erskine, which needed a win or a tie and help to qualify for the Conference Carolinas tournament, ends its season with a record of 5-11-2 overall and 2-7-1 in Conference Carolinas.

After neither team scored in the first 66 minutes, an Abbey counterattack punctuated by Yamson's team-leading 12th goal of the year was the difference. After Jack Reid cleared the ball out of the Abbey's half of the field, Weldon chased the ball down, dribbled ten yards and left a pass in front of Yamson, who streaked in from ten yards out unmarked and blasted a shot past Devon Braykovich for the goal.

From there, the Crusaders controlled much of the action, as Yamson had three more scoring chances, as two of his shots hit just over the crossbar and another was wide by a couple of feet. Erskine had several chances to gain the equalizer, but Abbey netminder Brandon Alvarez stopped all the chances. Alvarez finished with five saves.

Belmont Abbey will open the Conference Carolinas Tournament on the road beginning Wednesday. It will either be the sixth or seventh seed. Opponent and kickoff time will be announced later.