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Soccer splits first two games, wins season opener

Players on the Bradley soccer team place their hand over their heart while the national anthem plays before their season opener. Photo by Adam Rubinberg.
Players on the Bradley soccer team place their hand over their heart while the national anthem plays before their season opener. Photo by Adam Rubinberg.

Bradley took a step backwards last season by going 9-11 with just one year removed from an NCAA tournament appearance. The Braves embarked on the 2015 campaign with completely different expectations than previous seasons.

“I’ve been fortunate to coach a lot of different teams here at Bradley,” head men’s soccer coach Jim DeRose said. “The expectation was to win a few years ago and make other teams adjust to us. Right now, we’re just looking for continuity and consistency.”

This team, filled with plenty of new faces, isn’t necessarily built to win now. With various injuries, including a season-ending hip injury to senior Jason Lesch, graduated seniors and the departure of star Christian Okeke, DeRose is focused on finding consistency in a completely new season.

“We’ve been a little unsettled thus far into the year,” DeRose said. “We have a brand new system this year, which is different from what I’ve ran in the 20 years that I’ve been here. We’ve had to change a lot. The most difficult thing has been putting new players into a new system and moving players around.”

That unsettledness that DeRose mentioned showed in the Braves opening game against UIC last Friday. The men gave up two goals on deflected shots, which left sophomore goalkeeper Logan Ketterer helpless in trying to stop them. Bradley was outshot 17-9, and went on to lose by a score of 2-0.

The Braves home opener proved to be a better showing, however. The men played host to Houston Baptist and notched a 1-0 win on Sunday. The match wasn’t a high- scoring affair as the Braves scored the only goal, which was netted by freshman Frank Bak for his first career goal. Bradley’s defensive play was the key component to the win.

“For us, we’re probably never going to beat a team because we out-talent them,” DeRose said. “We just stuck to the things we did well. We defended well and we’re blessed to have a great goalkeeper. We got the ball to our talented guys in the box, and though we didn’t get it there a ton, we got it there enough.”

Ketterer performed so well over the weekend that the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) awarded him multiple accolades. He was named the MVC Defender of the Week, as well as MVC Scholar of the Week.

“Patience is a big thing for Logan,” DeRose said. “He redshirted his freshman year and then sat for two years. He learned his craft and challenged himself and has come in every day and has been nothing short of sensational. Bradley has a litany of great goalkeepers in its history and he deserves to be in the conversation.”

Bradley hosts Depaul tonight as they vie for their second win of the young season. DeRose wants the men to generate more scoring chances and string together a solid game overall.

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