PEORIA, Ill. – What 110 minutes could not settled in Saturday night’s regular-season finale at Shea Stadium will be continued Wednesday night when Bradley (10-5-4, 3-2-1 MVC) hosts Central Arkansas (7-8-1, 1-4-1 MVC) in the quarterfinals of the Missouri Valley Conference Men’s Soccer Championship.

 

Bradley flirted with danger, but salvaged a 1-1 tie against Central Arkansas on a crisp night at Shea Stadium Saturday when junior midfielder Keegan Balle drove home the tying strike in the 89th minute.  UCA appeared to get a golden goal in the 102nd minute when Ethan Miller found the back of the net with a 19-yard free kick.  The goal was taken away, however, because the referee had not yet blown his whistle to restart play.  On Miller’s second attempt, Bradley keeper Brian Billings got enough of the shot to push it over the bar for one of his four saves.

 

In a defensively-dominated first half, UCA took advantage of a Bradley misplay in the penalty area to take the game’s early lead.  After a flank service crossed through the penalty area, Bradley’s clearance attempt fell to Shafial Mason and the UCA forward hit a 1-time side volley from six yards inside the left post for the 1-0 lead at 11:16.

 

After being limited to just two shots in the first half, Bradley turned up the pressure in the second half, but came away empty on a number of dangerous possessions in the penalty area.  Perhaps the best chance came on a breakaway in the 87th minute when Bears keeper Cody Gibson made a kick save to deflect Jochen Graf’s attempt from 10 yards.

 

But with the clock ticking down, Bradley flooded the box and finally found the equalizer at 88:32 when Balle collected the ball in traffic toward the left post, spun and fired for his seventh goal of the year.

 

The tie, coupled with Evansville’s 2-1 home loss to Creighton, leaves Bradley and the Purple Aces tied for third in the final league standings.  Thanks to Bradley’s 2-0 win against Evansville, the Braves will be the third seed for next week’s MVC Men’s Soccer Championship, which will be played at Shea Stadium.  The fourth-seeded Purple Aces will take on fifth-seeded Drake in the 3 p.m. game, while Bradley will face off against UCA again in the 6 p.m. game Wednesday night.

 

Creighton won the regular-season title and will await the Drake-Evansville winner in Friday’s 3 p.m. semifinal game.  Southern Illinois-Edwardsville is the No. 2 seed and will play the Bradley-UCA winner in Friday’s 6 p.m. semifinal.  The championship game will be played Sunday, Nov. 11 at 1 p.m. at Shea Stadium.