Drake’s men’s soccer team (4-10-4, 1-2-2 MVC) will look to end its regular season on a positive note when it hits the road to take on Missouri State (5-7-4, 0-5 MVC) on Friday at 7 p.m. Drake will look to maintain its fifth seed in the Missouri Valley Conference Championship tournament and will guarantee that with a win. Drake will face either Bradley or Evansville in the quarterfinals.
The Bulldogs currently sit at fifth place with a 1-2-2 conference record, while Missouri State will seek to avoid a win-less conference season.
Similar to Drake, the Bears are not an upperclassmen-heavy squad. Scoring has been a season-long problem for Missouri State. The Bears have been blanked in four of their six last games and have only scored one goal in conference play.
Drake will be looking to avenge last season’s defeats to the Bears. Missouri State ruined Senior Day for Drake with a 2-1 double-overtime win. Then, a few weeks later, the Bears eliminated the Bulldogs from the State Farm MVC semifinals with a 2-0 win.
In fact, Drake has not defeated Missouri State since the 2008 season and has not defeated the Bears on their home turf since 2005.
Breaking that streak will be crucial for Drake to enter with momentum heading into the MVC tournament. Drake’s two matches against its possible opponents in the quarterfinals have ended in close affairs. Bradley (9-5-3, 3-2 MVC) defeated Drake earlier this month 3-2 in overtime, and Evansville (9-6-1, 3-1-1 MVC) fought Drake to a double-overtime 2-2 tie on Oct. 27.
The Bulldogs’ quarterfinal match will take place on Nov. 7 in Peoria, Ill.
However, before worrying about the MVC quarterfinals, the Bulldogs will look to defeat the Bears on the road for the first time in seven years and enter the tournament as the fifth seed.
