Conway – The Central Arkansas men's soccer team stepped out of Missouri Valley Conference play on Tuesday night, welcoming the Memphis Tigers to the Bill Stephens Complex. The Bears pushed their winning streak to three matches thanks to a hat trick from freshman Niklas Brodacki, taking down the Tigers 3-2.

After getting dangerous chances from senior Wes Carson and Brodacki early on, the Bears (5-7-1) opened the match's scoring in the 12^th minute, when sophomore Chris Holmes fired a corner kick into the box where Carson redirected it to sophomore Daltyn Knutson, who slipped it over to Brodacki to finish from three yards out. Knutson and Brodacki connected again in the 24^th minute, with Knutson again feeding Brodacki, who dribbled around a Memphis (7-6-1) defender and made use of a small amount of space, firing a rocket into the top-right corner to push the UCA lead to 2-0.

The Tigers would get both goals back, thanks to a pair of set piece goals from Raul Gonzalez. In the 34^th minute, the Memphis senior lined up a free kick from 20 yards out and fired a laser to the back post to cut the UCA lead in half, before converting from the penalty spot in the 40^th minute to even the match at 2-2 heading into the break.

The Bears and Tigers traded chances throughout the early going of the second half, before the Bears got the game-winner off another set piece in the 76^th minute. Junior Pepe San Roman launched a free kick from close to the right sideline into the box, where senior Jordan Bates headed it down to freshman Jonathan Gilkes. Gilkes' diving header made its way to Brodacki who completed the hat trick by knocking it home six yards out to put the Bears on top 3-2.

"First off, Memphis as an opponent gave us an incredibly battle," said Duncan. "It was a fair game, both teams were competing very, very hard to get the win, and it's incredibly hard to do what they did in the first half. The momentum was right on our shoulders, and they just took it from us. And they came out in the second half and did the same. I give out guys a lot of credit for being able to withstand the pressure that they put us under and to do a great job of grabbing the game back and taking it for us."

On the night, the Bears took 18 shots and put eight of them on goal. Brodacki was on frame with four his seven shots, while Carson put two on target. San Roman and Gilkes were each able to put a single shot on goal. In net, freshman Marc Olsen made six saves for the Bears.

"Obviously Niklas' second goal is a special, special individual moment," said Duncan of his' freshman goal-scorer. "I hate to not give him the credit he deserves, but his first and third goals were incredibly well-executed set pieces, which is something that we've been working tirelessly on, so to have that payoff is great."

Duncan also mentioned Knutson and Bates, saying, "I hate it for them that we didn't get the shutout, because it looked like it was going that direction. As a center back or goal keeper, that's what you hang your hat on. The goals we gave up were goals that were going to be difficult for our center backs to do anything about, and I thought that they were warriors all game long. We defended some set pieces late, Memphis changed their system in the middle of the game, so our guys go put under a lot of pressure, especially at that position, so for them to be able to with stand that was great. It was obviously nice to be able to get the game-winner, but it was Daltyn and Jordan that kept us in it up until then."

After playing six matches in the past 17 days, the Bears find themselves facing an eight day break. UCA will take to the pitch again on Wednesday, October 26^th, welcoming MVC foe SIUE to the Stephens. Kickoff is set for 7:00 PM.

"Physically, it's going to be a blessing," said Duncan of the Bears' upcoming break. "We need it more than anyone right now to just take some time off. We're going to train tomorrow, but as a recovery session, and we're going to get some tactical stuff done by the weekend, but getting the guys off of their feet and allowing them some recovery will be huge for us. The mental challenge will be 'can we go through that break and then still be able to get up for what promises to be a very difficult conference opponent in SIUE. It helps that it's at home, but for us it's going to be about avoiding complacency, avoiding the mental fatigue of not playing. But we've got a strong group, we've gone from a two-win team to a five-win team, and during this time of the season that's incredibly hard to do, so we're going to push the guys to make sure they're good to go."