The Lee men's soccer team scored just two minutes into the match, but the Carson-Newman Eagles battled back twice to find push the physical contest to a 2-2 draw on Saturday night at the Ray Conn Sports Complex.

Fabian Navarro electrified the home crowd as he powered home a beautiful cross from Sagi Rada before many fans had found their seat at the 1:46 mark.

Jackob Lechner tallied the equalizer for the Eagles in the 18^th minute as he rocketed a shot from 30 yards out into the top right corner of the net to make it 1-1.

Shachar Nissim put the Flames back ahead in the 24^th minute as he fired in a cross from Noam Stein. Balzano flicked it up to Stein and was also credited with an assist.

"Fabian and Shachar are special players with the ball. They find ways to make big plays for us and you saw that tonight," said Lee head coach Derek Potteiger, now in his sixth season on the sidelines for the Flames. "We created a lot of good opportunities, especially in that first half but unfortunately if you only have the one goal advantage anything can happen and we momentary breakdown in the back and they took advantage."

Lee would hold the advantage until the 70^th minute before Niels Buurman snuck one past the Flames keeper, Sam Keener to tie things up.

The Flames outshot the Eagles, 11-5 in the first half and 14-8 in the match. The teams combined for 31 fouls and five yellow cards in the physical non-conference battle.

"I thought we missed some opportunities to make that a 3-1 game in the first half," lamented Potteiger. "We have to learn how to take advantage of the chances we create in order to extend the lead. It came back to bite us in the second half tonight. This was a good test for us as we prepare for conference play. We knew it would be a very physical contest and that's what we will face come GSC play."

The Flames will enter league play on Friday as they travel to Union University for an 8:30 p.m. kickoff.

"Our focus and sights are set on the GSC and the GSC Tournament," noted Potteiger. "We certainly wanted a better result tonight but we will be locked in as we start conference play on the road."