Peoria, Ill. –

The sixth-seeded Central Arkansas men’s soccer team had the upper hand in their rematch with third-seeded Bradley on Wednesday evening, upsetting the Braves 1-0 to move on to the second round of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. “It’s a huge win for us, obviously,” said Bears coach Ross Duncan. “At Bradley, in the tournament, it’s just awesome.” The victory gives the Bears their first ever in the MVC Tournament.

The game followed a course similar to the teams’ November 3^rd match-up, with the Bears (8-8-1, 1-4-1 MVC) taking the lead in the first half. In the 37^th minute, Michael Quinn and Elia Louis worked together to get the ball to Daniel Sampedro in the center of the box, where he put it away with his left foot from six yards out. “That may have been our best goal of the year,” said Duncan.” There were three or four combinations that moved the ball up from our back line, and when it ended up at Dani’s feet, he took a great shot.” Unlike the previous game though, Bradley (10-6-4, 3-2-1 MVC) was unable to find an equalizer.

The Braves outshot the Bears 16-9, and had a slight 4-3 edge in shots on goal. Sampedro led the Central Arkansas attack with three shots, placing one on goal, and Manuel Montal was the only other Bear with multiple attempts, placing one of his two shots on target. “Dani was a handful for Bradley today, at one point they actually started double-teaming him,” said Duncan. “Mickey Segura had Central Arkansas’ other shot on goal. The Braves were led by Grant Bell, who placed two of his three shots on goal, and Keegan Balle, who was accurate with one of his three shots. In goal for the Bears, Cody Gibson collected three saves and his fourth shutout this season. Brian Billings made two stops for Bradley. “All five of the backs we used today were great,” praised Duncan. “Cody was huge as well. Some of the saves he made today were just sensational.”

The win means that Central Arkansas will advance to the conference semifinals to face off with the second-seeded SIUE Cougars, who edged the Bears 1-0 in Conway on October 27^th. “We’ve got to rest and get our legs back under us in a fairly short amount of time,” said Duncan, “but I don’t think that we need to change a lot from our last match with them. I feel like we generated enough chances to win that match. SIUE is definitely going to be tough, but we’ve shown this season that we’re a very resilient team, and the win today gave a lot of confidence.” The match will kick off at 6:00 PM. Live stats and video for the match are available at http://ucagameday.com/.