DES MOINES, Iowa – Senior Alyssa Brand (Skokie, Ill.) of the Drake University women's soccer team scored her second game winner in the past three matches in a 1-0 victory over Missouri State in the regular season finale Thursday at the Cownie Soccer Complex.
 
Brand, who scored in the 75^th minute of last week's 2-1 comeback over rival UNI last Wednesday in Cedar Falls, netted the winner for Drake (8-8-1, 5-1-1 MVC) in the 82^nd minute Thursday. Senior Linda Fiorito (Overland Park, Kan.) played the ball into the Missouri State (8-8-2, 2-3-2 MVC) box, passed to junior Shelley Lyjak (Bartlett, Ill.) who then found Brand unmarked in front of the net as her shot hit the near post and spun into the goal.
 
"Missouri State is traditionally very difficult to breakdown, so we knew this wouldn't be a high scoring game," said Drake head coach Lindsey Horner. "We should feel good about the chances we created but we can still be more efficient in the box. We left the door open just enough to keep the game in reach for Missouri State, and twice Kelsie (Stone) came up with huge saves."
 
It was a fitting end to a special night for Brand and her teammates. Brand was recognized before the match for being a recipient of the MVC's Most Courageous Award Wednesday. The MVC presents the award to past or present student-athletes, coaches or university administrators who demonstrate unusual courage in the face of personal illness, adversity or tragedy and whose behavior reflects honor on the institution or the Conference. Brand was diagnosed with thyroid cancer during the 2017 season, underwent successful surgery and treatment without missing any time for the Bulldogs and this season overcame an early knee injury and returned at Loyola on Oct. 6 and helped lead the team to a 5-1-1 finish in the MVC. She has scored two goal and handed out one assist since her return in Chicago.
 
The victory locked the Bulldogs into the No. 2 seed for next week's Missouri Valley Conference Tournament in Chicago, hosted by Loyola. Loyola (9-6-1, 6-1-0 MVC) is the MVC Regular Season Champion after it blasted Evansville, 6-1, Thursday. Drake and Loyola receive byes to the semifinals on Nov. 2 as each team will play the winners of the campus play-in games on. Drake will play either No. 3 UNI or No. 6 Evansville at 3:34 p.m. while Loyola takes on either No. 4 Illinois State or No. 5 Missouri State at 6:04 p.m. at Loyola Soccer Park. The play-in games will take place Sunday in Cedar Falls and Normal, Ill. The MVC Title game will be played Nov. 4 at 1:04 p.m.
 
Sophomore goalkeeper Kelsie Stone (Hoffman Estates, Ill.) recorded her fifth career shutout behind five saves, including some key stops early and late in the second half. The Bulldogs' back line of Fiorito, senior Elaine Gorom (O'Fallon, Ill.), redshirt junior Vanessa Kavan (Lincoln, Neb.) and senior Shannon Steurer (Ballwin, Ill.) limited the Bears to just seven shots.
 
"Come tournament time we need to be more clinical in front of goal," Horner said. "Shelley was so determined to make something happen in the second half, she was a big part of our attack today. Our back line led by Shannon was again quite tidy in the run of play. We are so pleased for Alyssa to find the back of the net. Her last year has been one of challenges, but she is such a fighter. We were a different team a little less than three months ago and took some lumps in our non-conference season, but the experience was invaluable to our growth. We needed to learn a lot prior to MVC play and our schedule was tough early on. Kevin (Brennan) and Hugo (Macedo) deserve a lot of credit for making sure the team was focused on the process, our growth, and striving to get better at each opportunity.  We are excited to have earned the bye, but as we wrap up the regular season and switch gears into tournament mode, we have to yet again up our game."