Men's Soccer: A Simply Amazing Win against Bradley

[JCT]

In the MVC men's soccer conference opener, Loyola trailed Bradley 1-0 for more than 70 minutes of the game. The Ramblers put up a withering attack, taking three times the shots that Bradley took, winning nine times the corner kicks, and making more shots on goal--- without success. But eight seconds away from defeat in regulation, Loyola earned the equalizer on a Kirill Likhovid goal to send the game to overtime. Then 3:33 into the first overtime, Ryan Howe wins a penalty kick and makes good on it for a 2-1 sudden death victory.

Bradley is one of the conference favorites and traditional MVC powers in men's soccer. Loyola's win was only their fifth win in 18 tries against the Braves dating back to the 1980s.

[goramblers2011]

Why is the soccer team only playing 4 regular season games against MVC teams? Found that kind of odd.

[ahunte1]

Pretty awesome. Were you there?

[JCT]

Why is the soccer team only playing 4 regular season games against MVC teams? Found that kind of odd.

Illinois State, Wichita State, Southern Illinois, Indiana State, and Northern Iowa don't have men's soccer. The MVC has SIU-Edwardsville and Central Arkansas as conference members in men's soccer to make seven teams in the league-- at least six teams are required for an auto bid to the NCAA Tournament. We play Bradley, Drake, Evansville, Missouri State, plus Central Arkansas and SIU-E, alternating between home/road every other year.

A surprising number of schools do not have D-1 men's soccer-- in the Big 10 for instance, Illinois, Minnesota, Purdue, Nebraska, and Iowa do not play men's soccer.

Pretty awesome. Were you there?

I felt like I was there through the magic of RamblerVision. I literally had my cursor on the button to turn off the game when Loyola tied it up with eight seconds left.

[goramblers2011]

That is really odd that so many schools don't have men's soccer.

Thanks for the info. Great to see the Ramblers winning some ball games.

[SubGod22]

It's a title IX issue I'd guess. Four of the five schools have football which tends to limit other men's sports. UNI had to drop baseball a few years back because of it. I keep hoping that WSU will at least add women's soccer at some point, but I have no idea if that's on the agenda or not. I'm not sure we'll ever see men's soccer on campus though.