USI in search of its 11th conference title
; GLVC Tournament Bracket; Live Match Stats
EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The University of Southern Indiana men's soccer team enters post-season play for the first time since 2003 when it travels to Bellarmine University Sunday for the first round of the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament. The kick-off for fifth-seeded USI and fourth-seeded Bellarmine is 1:30 p.m. (CDT) in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Screaming Eagles (10-6-0, 9-5-0 GLVC) earned the fifth spot in the league's tournament after defeating Kentucky Wesleyan College, 5-0, Wednesday evening in Owensboro, Kentucky. USI had five different goal scorers in the victory, while freshman midfielder
Josh Weinzapfel (Evansville, Indiana) led the way with a goal and three assists in the match.
The victory over KWC also gave USI 10 wins overall for the first time in nine years.
Senior forward
Jeffrey McClure (Indianapolis, Indiana) leads USI for the season with a team-best and career-high 30 points on 12 goals and six assists. He is followed by senior midfielder
Austin Andrekus (St. Charles, Illinois), who has posted a career-best 14 points on five goals and four assists this season.
Between the posts, the Eagles have two capable goalkeepers in junior
Jeffrey Neidlinger (Carmel, Indiana) and senior
Ben Dempsey (Evansville, Indiana). Neidlinger is 6-4-0 and a 0.87 goals against average (GAA), while Dempsey is 4-2-0 this fall with a 1.26 GAA.
The berth in the GLVC Tournament gives the Eagles a shot at their 11th conference title in men's soccer. USI won the first six league titles (1979-84) and a string of four-straight between 1988 and 1991. The 10 men's soccer conference crowns are the best in the GLVC.
Standing in the way in the first round are the Knights of Bellarmine (10-4-3, 9-3-3 GLVC). The Knights, who finished their regular season with a 3-0 win at McKendree University, defeated the Eagles last Sunday in a nail-biter, 1-0.
USI leads the all-time series with Bellarmine, 20-13-1, but has dropped six of the last eight matches to the Knights. Two of the last three matches have gone to overtime and the last four matches have been decided by one goal.
In addition to the Eagles and the Knights, the bottom half of the GLVC Tournament bracket features top-seeded Rockhurst University (14-2-2, 12-2-1 GLVC) and eighth-seeded Lewis University (9-8-0, 9-6-0 GLVC). The top half of the tournament bracket features seventh-seeded William Jewell College (11-6-0, 9-6-0 GLVC) at second-seeded Quincy University (11-1-5, 9-1-5 GLVC), while sixth-seeded University of Missouri-St. Louis (10-6-1, 9-5-1 GLVC) travels to third-seeded Drury University (12-3-2, 10-3-2 GLVC).
The GLVC Tournament semi-finals and championship match will be played at the highest-remaining seed November 2 and November 4.
