Soccer Return Game vs SIUE

Bradley Soccer plays the first of its two MVC return games Saturday at SIUE

Bradley University Marketing

Bobby Parker, Associate AD for Communications Soccer 10/21/2016 8:54:00 AM

EDWARDSVILLE, IL - Bradley Soccer will play the first of consecutive "return" games Saturday when the Braves (2-10-3, 0-4-1 MVC) visit Missouri Valley Conference rival Southern Illinois Edwardsville (6-4-3, 2-1-1 MVC) for a 7 p.m. kickoff of at Ralph Korte Stadium. In The Valley's new unbalanced schedule format, Bradley plays SIUE and Drake twice this season and after visiting the Cougars Saturday, the Braves will host Drake Wednesday at Shea Stadium.

GAME DETAILS
Bradley Braves (2-10-3, 0-4-1) at SIUE Cougars (6-4-3, 2-1-1 MVC)
Date: Saturday Oct. 22, 2016
Time: 7:00 p.m. CT
Location: Edwardsville, IL | Korte Stadium

COACHES
Bradley
Jim DeRose (Johnson State '89)
Career Record: 223-167-43 (21st season)
at Bradley: Same
vs. SIUE: 3-5-2

SIU Edwardsville
Mario Sanchez (Fresno State '99)
Career Record: 42-49-15 (6th season)
at SIUE: 18-8-5 (2nd season)
vs. Bradley: 1-0-1

SERIES HISTORY
Overall: SIUE leads 9-6-2 | at SIUE: SIUE leads 5-2-0
Saturday's game will be the 18th meeting in the all-time series, which dates back to SIUE's 5-2 win Sept. 22, 1989 in Edwardsville, and the Cougars own a 9-6-2 overall lead in the series ... Since SIUE joined The Valley as a men's soccer affiliate member in 2010, the Cougars own a 5-3-2 series lead ... SIUE owns a 5-2-0 all-time home record in the series, including a 3-0-0 record since joining The Valley ... Although Bradley snapped a 3-game losing streak against SIUE by playing the Cougars to a scoreless draw Oct. 8 at Shea Stadium, the Braves are winless (0-3-1) in four straight games in the series.

UNBALANCED RETURNS
The 2016 season has seen the introduction of an unbalanced league schedule in the 7-team Missouri Valley Conference ... Rather than playing each of the other six league teams once, each team was randomly assigned two teams it would play twice in an eight-game conference schedule ... Bradley has drawn defending MVC regular-season champion SIUE and defending MVC Tournament champion Drake for its two home-and-home opponents in 2016 ... Bradley is playing all four games in the two series in a 6-game stretch ... In consecutive games earlier this month, the Braves played SIUE to a scoreless draw Oct. 8 at Shea Stadium before taking a 1-0 loss Oct. 11 at Drake ... Bradley will host Drake Wednesday night.

YOUTH MOVEMENT
Of the 27 players to see the field for the Braves this season, 19 are underclassmen - 12 freshmen and seven sophomores ... While Bradley's lone senior field players - Jason Lesch and Alex Garcia - have combined to play 1,958 minutes this season, the 11 freshmen field players have combined to log 3,708 minutes.

SCORELESS STREAK
Bradley will enter Saturday's game suffering from a 4-game scoreless streak, a run that started with a scoreless draw against SIUE Oct. 8 at Shea Stadium ... The Braves have not scored since the 17th minute of an eventual 1-1 draw Oct. 1 at Western Michigan ... Since Richard Olson's goal at 16:40 in Kalamazoo, the Braves have played 473-minutes, 20-seconds without scoring over the last five games ... The 4-game scoring drought is the longest in program history.

ROAD DROUGHT
Bradley visits Edwardsville in search of its first road win of the season ... The Braves are 0-6-2 away from home this season, including 0-3-2 in true road games ... Bradley has not won a game away from home since earning a 3-2 victory Oct. 24, 2015 at Central Arkansas ... The current 10-game (0-7-3) winless streak away from home in the last calendar year matches the longest in program history, previously suffered with an 0-9-1 run spanning the 1995 and 1996 seasons ... That original 10-game drought began, ironically, after a 2-1 victory Sept. 10, 1995 at SIUE.

GOING DEEP
Bradley played 24 players in Tuesday's 4-0 loss to Omaha ... Three teams in The Valley have not played 24 players in the season - Loyola (21), Missouri State (23) and SIU Edwardsville (21) ... Of the 24 players to see the field Tuesday, 17 were freshmen (11) and sophomores (6).

WINNING DROUGHT
As the Braves prepare for Saturday night's game at SIUE, Bradley is looking to snap a season-long, 7-game winless (0-5-2) streak ... The Braves have scored just two goals in the seven games since their 2-0 win against Western Illinois Sept. 20 at Shea Stadium ... The winless streak is Bradley's longest within a single season since the Braves lost eight in a row from Sept. 30-Oct. 28, 2009 during a 6-11-1 campaign ... Bradley rebounded from that 2009 season by winning at least 10 games in each of the next four years, accumulating a 50-28-11 (.624) record with two MVC Tournament titles and three NCAA Tournament appearances from 2010-13.

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
Of the 20 programs that nominated student-athletes for CoSIDA Academic All-America program in District V (IL, IN, MI, OH), Bradley shares top honors with Akron and Northern Illinois by each nominating six candidates ... Of the 61 players nominated in District V, Bradley junior defender Clark Emerson was one of just two nominees boasting a perfect, 4.00 cumulative grade point average ... Bradley's six CoSIDA Academic All-America nominees: Falk Dennert (Jr., D, 3.78, International Business); Emerson (Jr., D, 4.00, Finance); Jacob Taylor (Jr., D, 3.78, Mechanical Engineering); Austin Bell (So., F, 3.53, Health Science); Logan Ketterer (Sr., GK, 3.35, Accounting); Matt Perry (So., MF, 3.42, Biochemistry) ... Bradley also received the NSCAA Team Academic Award earlier this fall in recognition of the program's 3.18 cumulative team grade point average.

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