CONWAY — After starting their season with consecutive road victories over Loyola Chicago and Western Illinois, the Central Arkansas men's soccer team will look to continue their winning streak at home this weekend as the Bears host a tournament featuring Missouri Valley Conference rival Missouri State along with Lipscomb and Oral Roberts.
"We're excited to open up at home and do so with a tournament like this," said Ross Duncan, who will make his home debut as the Bears' head coach. "It's especially nice to get Missouri State in here because they're another Missouri Valley Conference team and it feels good to work together on a project like this with those guys, who are great to work with. I think having four games with some higher-profile teams will help bring some excitement to campus and is a great way to start the home portion of our schedule."
The tournament, originally scheduled for Friday and Sunday, has been moved to Saturday and Monday due to potential weather complications stemming from Hurricane Isaac. Central Arkansas will play Lipscomb on Saturday at 4 p.m. and Oral Roberts on Monday at 2:30 p.m.
Missouri State will also play both Oral Roberts (1:30 p.m. Saturday) and Lipscomb (Noon Monday) in the first game each day.
The homestanding Bears enter the weekend riding the high of defeating a pair of teams that made the NCAA Tournament a year ago, and will be aiming to keep their perfect standing intact.
"The energy this week in training has been fantastic," Duncan said. "The guys are training with a different level of intensity, rising to the challenges we've been throwing at them. Not to say that we wouldn't be training well without the wins last weekend, but they certainly help. We come in in a good position, but at 2-0 our big message to the boys is that we haven't arrived yet. We've got a lot of work to do. We've got two quality opponents this weekend and if we want to be 4-0 at the end of it, we've got a lot to get done."
The Bears' opponents come in without a win to their credit, with ORU having dropped their lone game of the season 5-1 to Houston Baptist and Lipscomb sitting at 0-2 after losses to Eastern Illinois and Evansville.
"Both those teams are looking for something to kick-start their season," Duncan said. "It's still early in the year and nobody is out of it, but those teams are chomping at the bit looking for a win. With them coming in without a win, they're very dangerous opponents for us."
In addition to being the home-opening weekend, the games will account for a third of the Bears' home games this season, with only four more dates at the Stephens Complex remaining following the tournament. It also marks the home debut for Duncan and his coaching staff.
"I'm certainly excited from a personal standpoint, but it's more about the guys and representing our university on our campus," he said. "We don't have a ton of home games this year, and will have 33 percent of them knocked out by Monday. Each home game is absolutely special, so when we meet in the locker room, walk up to the game field, it's going to mean that much more knowing we don't have a lot of these to work with this year. It's a proud moment for our program to host a tournament like this, and our guys will get a lot of energy and momentum playing in front of family and friends."
