MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE FINALE
? The Bradley soccer team will conclude the Missouri Valley Conference portion of the 2008 schedule on Sunday, visiting league foe Evansville at 1 p.m. at Arad McCutchan Stadium.
? Sunday's trip will be Bradley's second of three trips to Evansville this season.
? The Braves enter the match with a 6-9-1 record, including a 1-3-0 MVC mark.
? Bradley's loss to Butler last Tuesday was its fourth straight, the longest skid for the Braves since 2006.
? Evansville is 8-6-1 overall and 1-2-0 in league play during the 2008 campaign.
? The Purple Aces notched their first league win last Saturday, earning a 3-1 road victory at Eastern Illinois.
? Bradley has won three consecutive Missouri Valley Conference finales.
The Series
? The Braves own a 9-5-0 advantage in the all-time series against Evansville dating back to 1994.
? Bradley has won eight games in a row against Evansville dating back to 2000.
? After dropping games at Evansville in 1994 and 1996, the Braves have won five times in a row against the Purple Aces in Evansville.
? Last season, then-senior Joe Donoho scored a pair of first half goals to lead the Braves to 2-0 victory over the Purple Aces at Shea Stadium on Oct. 17, 2007.
BUTLER SPOILS FINAL HOME GAME
? Playing in its final regular season home match of 2008, Bradley dropped a 2-1 decision to #21 Butler last Tuesday night at Shea Stadium.
? Bradley junior Graham Stockdale recorded his first goal as a Brave with a strike in the 21st minute, but the visiting Bulldogs bounced back with two goals in the final 12 minutes of the first half.
? Junior forward Chris Cutshaw earned an assist on Stockdale's goal, bumping his team-high points total to 20 (9 G, 2 A).
? Tuesday's loss for the Braves was the first time Bradley lost its home finale since a 3-1 loss to Tulsa on Oct. 31, 2004.
THE BRAVES IN THE HOOSIER STATE
? As the Braves wind down the 22nd soccer season in school history, Sunday's match at Evansville will be the 22nd match all-time played in the state of Indiana.
? The Braves are 11-8-2 in the previous 21 matches, most recently splitting a pair of games at the ProRehab Aces Soccer Classic hosted by Evansville Sept. 12-14.
? The Braves have earned victories on the home fields of Evansville, IUPUI, Notre Dame and Valparaiso, combining to win 10 times in true road games against those four teams.
? Bradley has also earned neutral site victories over Cornell (Notre Dame) and North Florida (Evansville).
? In the 21 previous matches, the Braves have tied their opponent only twice in the state of Indiana, earning a scoreless draw against Furman on Sept, 12, 2002 in a game played at Notre Dame, and a 1-1 tie at Indiana in the second round of the 2007 NCAA tournament, a game the Braves went on to win in penalty kicks.
SCOUTING THE PURPLE ACES
? Evansville enters Sunday's match against Bradley with an overall record of 8-6-1 and a league mark of 1-2-0.
? After starting the season 5-0-0 and earning a national ranking as high as #21, the Purple Aces have gone 3-6-1 since dropping a 4-2 decision at #14 UC Santa Barbara on Sept. 18.
? Four of Evansville's six losses this season have come to teams ranked #16 or higher in the national polls (#3 Creighton, #6 Maryland, #14 UCSB and #16 Indiana).
? The Purple Aces dropped their MVC opener to Creighton, 3-2, on Oct. 11, allowing the game-winning goal with just 51 seconds remaining against the nation's third-ranked team.
? Using a pair of second half goals, Evansville broke a 1-1 halftime tie with Eastern Illinois last Saturday to earn a 3-1 victory, its first league win of the season.
? The Purple Aces rank in the middle of the pack offensively in league games, tying for second in goals per game (1.67) and assists per game (2.00).
? Head coach Mike Jacobs is in his third year at Evansville with a record of 27-23-2 (.538) and seventh year overall as a head coach.
HEAD COACH JIM DeROSE
? Jim DeRose (Johnson State ?89) is in his 13th season as a head coach, all at Bradley, and was the 2007 Soccer America National Coach of the Year.
? DeRose and his staff have been named the Missouri Valley Conference Coaching Staff of the Year in each of the last two seasons.
? After serving as an assistant coach at former MVC member Illinois State from 1992 through 1994 and one year as an assistant at Richmond, the then 27-year-old DeRose took over a struggling Bradley program in 1996 and has turned the Braves into a consistent winner.
? DeRose enters Wednesday with a 149-94-26 (.602) career record, needing one more victory to become the third coach in Missouri Valley Conference history to win 150 games.
? His 149 wins represent 74.5 percent of Bradley's 200 victories in the 21-year history of the program.
