Peoria, IL -- The Bradley Braves are set to welcome the Evansville Purple Aces to Shea Stadium for homecoming weekend in the Braves and Aces for the 39th all-time meeting.

Game Information
Bradley Braves 3-5-1 (0-2-0 MVC) vs Evansville Purple Aces 4-6-1 (0-2-0 MVC)
Date & Time: Saturday, September 28th, 2024 • 7 PM CST
Location: Shea Stadium
Live Coverage:  ESPN+ | Live Stats
All-Time Series: Bradley leads 21-13-4, BU leads 11-7-0 in Peoria

Match Preview
Both the Bradley Braves and Evansville Purple Aces will look for a massive win when Evansville travels to Shea Stadium during Bradley's homecoming weekend. Both teams stand at 0-2 in Missouri Valley Conference play, but the good news for Braves fans is that at least on paper they will have one of the easier paths remaining in the conference slate having already played two of the top-3 teams (Missouri St and Bowling Green) and having played both to a draw until the final 10 minutes of each contest while being down to 10-men in each game. On the Evansville side of things they are also coming off two close losses to Drake (L 2-1) and #9 Western Michigan (L 2-1).

In year one with the MAC affiliate schools apart of the MVC for men's soccer the lowest conference point total that made the conference tourney (top-6 teams) was 10 points, held by both Belmont and Northern Illinois.
(Conference win = 3 points, Conference Draws = 1 point.).

About the Braves
The Braves despite standing at 0-2 in MVC play BU should feel really good about the opportunities they have coming up. Bradley in their last two MVC games have played with 10-men for a total of 94 minutes of a possible 180 minutes. The Braves in their last outing nearly hung on for a point against top-25 Bowling Green last week despite starting GK Drew Berry having to leave the contest and F Claudel Ngonang being sent off via red card. They've know had a full week off to rest and prepare for this match with Evansville.

About the Aces
Evansville comes in with a very balanced scoring attack with eight members of the Aces recording one or more goals on the season. They are lead by veteran goal scorer Nacho Diaz Barragan who has five goals and two assists on the season in 828 minutes. In goal fans can expect to see Michal Mroz who has played every minute in goal this season for the Aces with 16 goals against and 33 saves in 128 shots faced.

The match will be available for streaming on ESPN+ with kickoff scheduled for 7:00 PM CST, tailgating for those in person will begin at 4:00 PM with a free student shuttle departing from the Bradley University student center to the stadium at 6:00 PM.