EDWARDSVILLE, IL - For the third time in the last five years and seventh time overall, six Bradley Soccer players earned All-Missouri Valley Conference honors, according to a vote of the league's seven head coaches announced Thursday night.
Midfielder Frank Bak (Glenview, IL/Glenbrook South H.S.) is the third Bradley player selected the MVC Freshman of the Year, while senior forward Grant Bell (Little Falls, MN/Little Falls H.S.) was Bradley's lone selection for the All-MVC first team. A quintet of Braves landed earned All-MVC honorable mention: junior goalkeeper Logan Ketterer (Racine, WI/The Prairie School); junior midfielder Alex Garcia (Peoria, IL/Notre Dame H.S.); senior defender Andrew Brown (Overland Park, KS/Saint Thomas Aquinas H.S.); sophomore defender Jacob Taylor (Dunlap, IL/Dunlap H.S.); and Bak.
A two-time, second-team All-MVC pick as a defender, Bell made the smooth transition to foward for his senior year and leads the league with 10 assists, while ranking second with 18 points. Bell joins an exclusive group of eight Bradley Soccer players to earn at least second-team all-conference honors three times: Brian Billings (2011-12-13), Grant Campbell (2006-08-09), Chris Cutshaw (2006-09-09), Chris Dunsheath (2002-03-04-05), Gavin Glinton (1998-99-00-01), Bryan Namoff (1997-99-00) and Tim Regan (2000-01-02).
Bak enters the MVC Men's Soccer Championship tied for fifth in the league with five goals scored and he is sixth in The Valley with 12 points scored. He also shares the league lead with three game-winning goals this season. Bradley's second-leading scorer behind Bell, Bak becomes Bradley's third all-time MVC Freshman of the Year, following Chris Cutshaw in 2006 and Christian Okeke in 2013. Freshmen Gavin Glinton (1998) and Chris Dunsheath (2002) were named MVC Newcomers of the Year prior to the shift of the award to freshmen.
Ketterer ranks second in The Valley by averaging 4.75 saves per game. Garcia is tied for third on the Bradley team with three goals. All three were scored in conference play and Garcia ranks eighth in the league with his six Valley points. Brown is second for the Braves with three assists and he scored the tying goal in the 89th minute last Saturday at Drake. Taylor leads the team with 1544 minutes played this season and is the only Bradlye player to start all 17 games. He ranks third on the team with eight points and is tied for third with three goals.
The Braves previously had six players earn All-MVC accolades in 1998, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011 and 2013.
Bradley (7-9-1, 4-1-1 MVC) is the No. 2 seed in this week's Missouri Valley Conference Men's Soccer Championship and the Braves will begin their tournament run Friday with a 3 p.m. semifinal matchup against third-seeded Drake. The teams played to a 1-1 draw in the regular-season finale last Saturday in Des Moines. The Bradley-Drake winner will face the Loyola-SIU Edwardsville victor in Sunday's 1 p.m. championship game at SIUE's Korte Stadium.
