Colorado College will attempt to win its first Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference men's soccer championship this week in Shreveport, La., and to do so, it will have to become the first team to win three games in three days.

The third-seeded Tigers kick off the tournament against host Centenary College, the No. 6 seed on Friday at 10:30 a.m. MT, and the winner will face No. 2 Southwestern University on Saturday at 2 p.m. MT.

Saturday's winner advances to Sunday's championship game, which begins at noon MT.

"We know we have a big challenge ahead of us this weekend," head coach Scott Palguta said. "At practice this week, we have stressed the importance of staying present and in the moment. Our preparation has been squarely focused on Friday's game against Centenary. We have looked sharp, focused, and energized, and we look forward to an intense and competitive game on Friday afternoon.

Since the SCAC postseason tournament was re-instituted in 2011, only Southwestern won quarterfinal and semifinal matches to reach the finals in 2012 and 2018, and each time the Pirates lost to Trinity University in the championship match.

CC, which has a 5-6 all-time record in the SCAC tournament, has advanced to the championship match four times. The Tigers are 1-1 in quarterfinal matches and 4-1 in the semifinals.

Centenary, which is making just its second appearance in the conference championship, dropped a 1-0 result to Southwestern in a 2012 quarterfinal.

Colorado College is 5-3-1 overall and 5-2-1 in conference play. The two losses occurred on April 9 and 11 when the Tigers lost to Trinity and Texas Lutheran, respectively, in back-to-back road contests on the same weekend.

Centenary enters Friday's semifinal with a 3-5-1 overall record and a 3-4-0 mark in the conference, which includes a 2-0 loss to Colorado College on March 27 at Stewart Field.

Junior goalkeeper Keleher Felton made a pair of big-time saves early in the game and Skyler Stark-Ragsdale struck for what proved to be the game-winning goal late in the first half as CC recorded its only clean sheet of the season against the Gents. However, the Centenary is 3-0 at home in SCAC games this season, while Colorado College is 1-2-1 on the road in league matches.

CC's only tie occurred on Saturday, March 20, at Southwestern when the Tigers held on for the draw despite playing a man down for almost 53 minutes. Colorado College broke through in the 35th minute when sophomore defender Noah Johnson got on the end of freshman defender Alexander Ward's corner kick and scored on a header at the back post.

The momentum turned 12 minutes into the second half when CC went a man down after Johnson was shown a red card. The Pirates leveled the score in the late in the 86th minute, but the Tigers won three corner kicks and put a pair of shots on target during the extra 20 minutes and came close to pulling out the victory.

Colorado College features senior forward Miles Montgomery, the reigning SCAC Offensive Player of the Week, who leads the team with a career-high 12 points and six assists. Montgomery enters Friday's game on a two-game goal and four-game point streak during which he has recorded two goals and four assists.

Senior forward Kiran Singh leads the Tigers with five goals and is second with 11 points, while senior midfielder Jackson Silverstein is third with nine points on two goals and five assists.

Stark-Ragsdale has two goals and two assists, while senior holding midfielder John Schuler also has a pair of goals.

Felton played all but three minutes in goal for CC this season and has a 1.85 goals-against average and a .605 saves percentage.

On the other side of the bracket, No. 4 Texas Lutheran University (5-3-0) faces No. 5 University of St. Thomas (4-2-2) on Friday at 10 a.m. MT, with the winner going through to Saturday's semifinal against top-seeded Trinity (6-0-1).