Conway, Ark.– The Central Arkansas men's soccer team is coming off a historic 2018 campaign that saw them capture a second consecutive Missouri Valley Conference title along with a second consecutive birth to the NCAA Tournament.
Central Arkansas will host Wright State tomorrow night, a squad that went 13-3 last season and just missed an "at-large" bid to the NCAA Tournament after losing their conference championship match to UIC. UCA Head Coach
Ross Duncan believes these are the games his men must get results out of to give themselves a better shot at NCAA Tournament qualification.
"We're essentially trying to put together a resume that allows us to not win our conference tournament, and still get into the national tournament. It's very difficult to do with a team like ours, who's still establishing itself on the national scene so we have to get wins against quality opponents and that's what it comes down to. Wright State is one of those. If we can get a result against them, that's a feather in our cap for the resume at the end of the season," said Duncan.
Central Arkansas has competed in two exhibition games this season, traveling to Belmont and Tulsa. In their first match with Belmont, UCA fell 2-0 in what was a shocking defeat from the Bears' point of view as Belmont only won four games total in the season before. However, the Bears bounced back in their second exhibition match in a 6-1 thrashing of Tulsa. Coach Duncan is far from satisfied with that performance, but believes his men can carry the momentum into tomorrow night.
"It was far from perfect. We're not reading too much into that. Can we take some confidence from the Tulsa match? Certainly. They're a very good opponent and we got an emphatic result in their backyard, but I think if we take that win and expect to replicate that tomorrow night then we're going to be in trouble," said Duncan.
The Bears head into tomorrow night having only lost one home game last season and will look to continue that form this season. Kickoff is scheduled for 8:00 PM.
