Men’s Soccer Hosts UIC in MVC Championship First Round Sunday Afternoon

 
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Postseason play at E.S. Rose Park begins Sunday afternoon as the fourth-seeded Belmont University men's soccer team hosts fifth-seeded University of Illinois Chicago for the opening round of the 2025 Missouri Valley Conference Championship. Kickoff from the Music City is set for 2 p.m.
 
The MVC Men's Soccer Championship first round match will be broadcast on ESPN+ with Wes Boling on the call. Live stats of the postseason home match can be followed by visiting BelmontBruins.com.
 
What's Bruin

• The Bruins (8-2-6, 3-2-2 MVC) are hosting in the MVC Championship for the first time in program history. Belmont had to go on the road to UIC in both of its first two MVC Championship first round matches in 2022 and 2023.
• Belmont is hosting a postseason match for just the third time in school history. The Bruins hosted first-round or play-in matches in 2018 and 2019 while in the Southern Conference.
• As the No. 6 seed, Belmont won its two previous postseason matches at Rose Park, which were both versus Virginia Military Institute. The Bruins topped seventh-seeded VMI 2-1 in 2018 and 4-0 in 2019.
• Belmont makes its return to the MVC Championship after missing out on last year's conference tournament.
• The Bruins are 1-2 in the MVC Championship with a 1-0 road win over the fourth-seeded Flames in the quarterfinals in 2022 when Belmont was the No. 5 seed.
• Seventh-year head coach David Costa is 6-5 in conference tournament matches as he guided the Bruins to back-to-back SoCon Championship title matches in 2020-21, which was played in the spring of 2021 due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, and 2021.
• Belmont secured the No. 4 seed for the MVC Championship with a gutsy, 2-1 victory over top-seeded MVC regular season champion Evansville Wednesday night in Nashville.
• The Bruins clinched a spot in the six-team MVC Championship last Friday night with an impressive 5-0 road shutout at Bradley.
• Belmont has dropped only two matches over the last 380 days.
• The Bruins have conceded multiple goals in only two matches this season – a 2-1 home loss to UIC on Oct. 12 and a 2-2 road draw at Northern Illinois on Oct. 17.
• Prior to its loss to the Flames, Belmont held a program-record 13-match unbeaten streak, which dated back to Oct. 25 of last year. It was the third-longest unbeaten streak in the nation at the time.
• The Bruins were undefeated through their first 11 matches of the season for the first time in school history.
• Belmont has outscored its opponents 28-12 this season and the Bruins' plus-seven goal differential in MVC play led the league. No other MVC team scored as many goals as Belmont (15) in Valley play this season.
• A brace from sophomore midfielder Louis Peña propelled the Bruins past the Purple Aces Wednesday night. The Copenhagen, Denmark, native scored the game winner at the 69th minute after equalizing in the 39th minute off a corner kick.
• Peña's goals were his second and third of the season and his first scores since his penalty kick game winner in Belmont's 2-1 season-opening home win over Wright State on Aug. 21.
• Freshman midfielder Paul Claes Nielsen assisted on Peña's game winner against Evansville, earning his team-leading fifth assist of the season.
• Redshirt junior forward Brock Kiper landed MVC Offensive Player of the Week honors for the second time in his career earlier this week after posting five points in the Bruins' road rout of Bradley last weekend. He recorded Belmont's first brace of the season and added an assist on the Bruins' second goal (Nzuhri Biggar).
• Kiper's scores against the Braves were his team-leading fifth and sixth goals of the season. The Mason, Ohio (Archbishop Moeller HS), owns a team-high 15 points on the year and his 14 career goals are tied for the fifth-most in program history.
• Graduate goalkeeper Grant Calvert has been fantastic as of late, registering at least four saves in each of his last six matches. Making a career-high tying seven saves at Bradley, Calvert notched his fifth clean sheet of the year.
• Calvert's 82.6 save percentage is 17th-highest in the nation, while his 0.757 goals against average is 21st-lowest in the country.
• Twelve different Belmont players have found the back of the net this season – Kiper (6), freshman forward Jaxon Stokes (4), freshman midfielder Biggar (3), Peña (3), redshirt sophomore forward Lucas Wolthers (3), senior captain midfielder Brad Dildy (2), sophomore midfielder Emmanuel Aranda (1), senior defender Riley Clothier (1), graduate defender Parker Forbes (1), redshirt senior forward Jimiyu Mark (1), redshirt junior defender Nate Mefford (1), and Claes Nielsen (1).
• In the latest NCAA RPI (Rating Percentage Index) rankings, the Bruins are up to No. 85 as the third-highest ranked team in the MVC.
• UIC enters postseason play ranked just inside the top 100 in the RPI at No. 99.
• Belmont has earned results against four teams ranked in the top 85 of the NCAA RPI – No. 59 Harvard (1-0), No. 63 Louisville (0-0), No. 70 Northern Illinois (2-2) and No. 83 Bellarmine (1-1).
• The Bruins are a remarkable 5-0-4 on the road this season with six road shutouts.
• Going back to last season, Belmont has achieved a result in 17 of its last 20 matches.

Bruins at Home

• The Bruins have posted a result in 38 of their last 46 matches at Rose Park, outscoring their opponents 67-34 during that stretch.
• Since the start of the 2018 season, Belmont is 32-14-13 at home.
• The Bruins have finished .500 or better at home for eight consecutive seasons.
• Three of Belmont's final five matches of the regular season were at Rose Park.

Versus UIC

• Sunday will be the 12th all-time meeting between the Bruins and the Flames with UIC holding an 8-2-1 lead in the series.
• Four weeks ago, UIC defeated Belmont 2-1 behind Edouard Nys' two-goal performance. Biggar scored an equalizing goal in the 25th minute, but Nys provided the game winner in the 84th minute. The Bruins outshot the Flames 12-9 and held a 4-2 advantage on corners.
• Belmont is 0-5-1 versus UIC at Rose Park.
• The two teams were also league opponents in the Horizon League (2014-17).
• Since the Bruins and the Flames have both been in the MVC (2022), Belmont has gone 2-3-1 against UIC.
• In the Bruins and Flames' first match as Valley opponents on Oct. 1, 2022, Belmont earned a 3-3 draw in Nashville.
• As the No. 5 seed, the Bruins defeated fourth-seeded UIC 1-nil on Nov. 6, 2022, in Chicago to advance to the 2022 MVC Championship semifinals.
• As the No. 3 seed in the 2023 MVC Championship, the Flames got past sixth-seeded Belmont 2-1 in the first round in the Windy City.
• Last October in Chicago, the Bruins shut out UIC in a single-goal affair. Mefford scored the game winner in the 57th minute.

About the Flames

• The Flames (9-2-5, 2-1-4 MVC) ended the regular season with a 2-1 home win over Western Michigan.
• Prior to its win over the Broncos, UIC's last triumph was its victory at Belmont on Oct. 12.
• The Flames boast one of the top offenses in the nation. UIC's 20.06 shots per match lead Division I soccer and its 8.75 shots on goal per match are second-most in the country. Averaging 2.3 goals per match, the Flames rank 11th in the nation in scoring.
• UIC has scored an MVC-best 37 goals this season.
• With 15 goals on the year, junior midfielder Nys is tied for the second-most nationally. He leads all Division I players in both shots (5.8) and shots on target (2.9) per match.
• Fellow junior midfielder Darrell Turcios has found the back of the net five times this season, while both sophomore midfielder Carlos Nevarez and junior defender Sota Nakazono have assisted on six goals each.

Up Next
The Bruins will travel to top-seeded Evansville next Wednesday for the MVC Championship semifinals should Belmont prevail victorious Sunday afternoon versus the Flames. Kickoff from Arad McCutchan Stadium in Evansville, Indiana, is scheduled for 6 p.m. The MVC Championship semifinal match will be broadcast on ESPN+.
 
How to Follow
Follow Belmont men's soccer on social media – @BelmontMSoccer on X, formerly Twitter, @belmontmsoccer on Instagram and Belmont University Men's Soccer on Facebook – for complete coverage of the Bruins. Stay up to date with all of Belmont's athletic programs via the official app of the Belmont Bruins, available both in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.