Conway, Ark.-

The Central Akansas Bears broke out of a two game scoring draught Monday afternoon, collecting their second own goal of the season, but also netting two goals of their own to defeat the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles 3-0 to close out the Central Arkansas Invitational Soccer Tournament.

After winning their second game of the season 1-0 on an own goal, and falling to Lipscomb 1-0, it looked like the Bears (3-1-0) might continue to be unable to find the goal early on Monday, when they seemingly saw a Zac Burns cross cleared by ORU’s Juan Diego Padilla. Unfortunately for the Golden Eagles (0-3-0) though, Padilla’s clearing attempt failed to clear the cross bar, shooting into the net to give the Bears the 1-0 lead in the ninth minute.

The Bears saw an end to the scoreless streak of scoreless soccer come to an end in the 34^th minute when Alex Ghiffari fielded an ORU clearance running away from the goal and pressured by two Golden Eagles. After a bit a fancy footwork gave him some space, Ghiffari lofted a beautiful cross to the top left corner of the of the box where Mickey Segura fielded it and smashed it into the back of the net to extend the lead to 2-0 with his first goal of the season.

Central Arkansas added their final goal of the day in the 57^th minute when Manuel Montal corralled a loose rebound off of Daniel Sampedro’s shot and was able to sneak it into the net.

“It was night and day from Saturday’s game,” Central Arkansas coach Ross Duncan said. “We drew a line in the sand and asked our guys to step forward, which they did.” He mentioned that it was a complete game for the Bears, noting that his starters “did a nice job of putting in work in the first half,” while pointing out that “I was really excited that we were able to put in some guys that hadn’t played a minute yet and they were able to pull their weight,” in reference to a number of Bears that made season debuts Monday afternoon.

In goal for the Bears, Cody Gibson picked up the shutout in his first start in a Central Arkansas uniform, proving to be one of the debuts that Duncan was so excited about. “Cody has come back from a knee injury, he’s basically two years out, and he’s really stepped forward beyond our expectations,” Duncan said of Gibson. Gibson made three saves for the Bears. Ryan Grashik was in goal for Oral Roberts, making two saves on the day.

The Bears return to action with a road trip to Indianapolis next weekend, battling IUPUI on Friday evening and Butler on Sunday. Of the road trip Duncan said, “Both opponents should be difficult in their home stadiums, but we’ve can’t focus on that. We want to take another step forward and focus on how we play and what we can control.”