Box Score DES MOINES, Iowa – The Drake men's soccer team closed its 2015 regular season battling the Bradley Braves to a 1-1 double-overtime draw in Missouri Valley Conference action on Saturday (Nov. 7) at the Cownie Soccer Complex.
Prior to the MVC match Drake (9-4-3, 3-1-2 MVC) held a senior night ceremony for its five seniors as Alec Bartlett (Overland Park, Kan.), Austin Reutzel (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), Alex Troester (Iowa City, Iowa), Brandon Welter (Mankato, Minn.) and Kyle Whigham (Overland Park, Kan.) were recognized for their Bulldog careers.
“Another very strong performance tonight as we dominated possession for the majority of the game and created a number of chances,” said head coach Gareth Smith. “Our seniors were a credit to themselves and to our program and showed why they are held in high regard. It was disappointing to concede in the last two minutes, especially off of the long throw as we had trained for this, but just didn't execute well in that moment.”
Drake and Bradley (7-9-1, 4-1-1 MVC) finished with nearly identical statistics as the Bulldogs had 12 shots, including eight on goal, and the Braves recorded 14 shots with eight shots on goal.
Junior James Wypych (Wellington, New Zealand) scored the game's first goal in the 26th-minute (26:05) taking a long pass from junior Mueng Sunday (Coralville, Iowa) beating a Braves defender and punching it past goalie Logan Ketterer to give the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead.
The teams ended the first period with five shots and four shots by Drake and Bradley, respectively, as the score remained in favor of Drake, 1-0, at halftime.
Bradley didn't score the equalizer until the 88th-minute (88:43) as Jacob Tyler launched a long throw in from the far side of the field that Grant Bell headed to his teammate Andrew Brown who pushed it past Drake goalie Darren MacLeod (Waterloo, Ontario).
The teams each finished with three shots in the overtime periods. Drake had two headers by Bartlett and one by sophomore Steven Enna (Overland Park, Kan.).
Wypych's goal was his seventh of the season, while Sunday tallied his seventh assist on Wypych's goal. MacLeod finished with six saves.
“Our form in the conference has been very strong and we had hoped to win the regular season tonight, but it wasn't meant to be,” Smith said. “We are looking forward to the conference tournament next week and the game against UCA (Central Arkansas).”
The 2015 MVC Men's Soccer Championship will kick off with quarterfinal matches on Wednesday, Nov. 11, in Edwardsville, Ill., at Ralph Korte Stadium on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Third-seeded Drake will battle No. 6 Central Arkansas in the first contest (3 PM), followed by a tilt with No. 4 Missouri State and fifth-seeded Loyola (6 PM). Host and top-seeded SIUE and No. 2 seed Bradley will await the winners of Wednesday's matches in semifinal matches on Friday – Bradley will take on the winner of the Drake/Central Arkansas matchup at 3 PM, while SIUE will await the winner of the Missouri State/Loyola match at 6 PM. All matches will be shown on ESPN3.com.
