The top of the Evans boys soccer team's three-part scouting report for its first-round playoff game screamed two words, typed in all capital letters and followed by two exclamation points: mental toughness.

The Knights had their focus tested for all 80 minutes against Mt. Zion-Jonesboro on Wednesday night, a game they controlled throughout even though they never scored until the final minute. That's when, only 54.4 seconds away from overtime, Chris Burton's long throw-in header squirted in front of the goal and Joe Rizner ripped it into the net for the only goal in the Knights' 1-0 win in their first-round Class AAAA playoff opener.

"Sometimes our guys can be a little too unselfish," said Evans coach Brian Killips, whose team improved to 10-2-3 and will play either Upson-Lee or Wayne County at home on April 29 in the second round.

Killips said his team struggled to score the opening goal all season, even though they lost only twice and went unbeaten on the way to the Region 3-AAAA title.

Mt. Zion, the school that stunned the Knights unbeaten football team in the opening round of the playoffs last fall as a No. 4 seed, benefited because it didn't surrender an early goal even though it sure tried.

The Bulldogs spent the first 20 minutes marred in their defensive third making errors that remarkably didn't lead to a goal: clearing the ball to the middle, letting a cross bounce half a dozen times, leaving Evans players unmarked.

Once the Bulldogs settled down, they had maybe the best scoring chance of the half. Just before halftime, a Bulldog defender struck a rolling ball near midfield, and the clearance caught the wind and nearly sailed over Evans goalkeeper Jeff DuMond. Back-peddling, DuMond tipped the ball off the crossbar and over the goal.

"If that would have gone in, I would have passed out," Mt. Zion coach Chris Brown said.

Brown said he was hoping to frustrate the Knights and for one of his team's long passes to leak past Evans for a goal. The Bulldogs produced plenty moments of pressure but couldn't constituently get past Evans sweeper Bryce Cartledge to shoot on target.

"I don't mind driving two hours to play like this," Brown said. "We don't see a lot of, I guess you could say, pretty soccer where we come from. ... It was a good game between two different teams."

Evans nearly scored twice midway through the second half, but missed on a wide-open header and had a goal disallowed for offsides.