⚽️ Ohio Valley Conference Tournament CHAMPIONSHIP
🆚 SIU-Edwardsville
📆 Saturday, November 16, 2024
⏰ 6 pm
🏟️ Ralph Korte Stadium – Edwardsville, Illinois
📈 LIVE STATS
📺 ESPN+
EDWARDSVILLE, ILLINOIS --- Houston Christian University faces top-seed and host SIU-Edwardsville on Saturday evening in the Ohio Valley Conference championship at Bob Guekler Field at Ralph Korte Stadium. Kickoff for the battle between cats and dogs is slated for 6 pm, as
Ryan Pratt's second-seeded Huskies look for their first conference title since 1985 against the defending OVC champion Cougars.
The Huskies defeated Lindenwood 2-0 in Wednesday's semifinal to move into a conference championship match for the first time since 2010, when they were defeated 2-1 in overtime by Adelphi in the Atlantic Soccer Conference final. SIUE, which was the regular season champion for the second straight season, bested University of the Incarnate Word 1-0 in the second semifinal to set up Saturday's championship showdown.
HCU and Lindenwood played even for the first 45 minutes before the Huskies struck early in the second frame on a beautiful header by OVC Defender of the Year
Sam Zeeman to claim a one-nil advantage. The header came from OVC Freshman of the Year
Morgan Worsfold-Gregg, who took
Thomas Wyke's free kick and touched a well-placed volley over the defense to the front post for the lead.
The Huskies would then clamp down on defense, turning away the Lions at every turn the remainder fo the afternoon. With just 10 minutes to go and the finish line in sight,
Ethan Giwa-McNeil doubled the margin with another header nearly identical to the one from Zeeman 29 minutes earlier. After a corner was batted out of the box,
Ricardo Garcia popped a nice ball over the top of the defense to Giwa-McNeil for his team-leading sixth tally of the campaign.
Alex Aitken earned the clean sheet, his eighth of the season with a brilliant effort in the back third by a Huskies defense intent on not allowing anything through the pipes.
One year after not qualifying for the postseason in the league's inaugural campaign, the Huskies now find themselves facing the league's most dominant team over the course of the first two OVC seasons. The Cougars finished 8-1-1 in regular season, upping their two-year mark to a staggering 17-1-2 in league play and 27-5-6 overall.
The Huskies cracked that dominance somewhat on October 20, handing the Cougars their only conference defeat and moving top of the table with a "Senior Day" win at Sorrels Field.
Ryan Okerayi's left-footed screamer in the 49th minute proved to be all the scoring needed as HCU pulled out the dramatic 1-0 finish.
HCU earned the second seed in the tournament and the attached first-round bye by virtue of winning their four-team pod, finishing ahead of Liberty, UIW and Western Illinois. The Huskies are now 8-6-5 overall record and finished with a 5-2-3 mark in OVC play, with both representing the most wins in a season and in conference play since 2019. That was the last time the Huskies advanced to the postseason, where they were defeated by Air Force in the WAC Tournament.
A strong balance of offense and defense has led the Huskies all season. The attack features eleven different players hitting the back of the net and eight with at least two assists. That attack for HCU is led by Giwa-McNeil and Okerayi. Giwa-McNeil took over the team-lead in goals (6) and points (16) with his score against Lindenwood. Okeraryi adds five goals and five assists for 15 while
D'Alessandro Herrera and now Zeeman chip in three goals each. Worsfold-Gregg adds two goals picked up his third assist of the season on the pass to Zeeman versus Lindenwood.
On the other end of the pitch, the Huskies have been a formidable force, allowing just 16 goals in 19 outings in front of Aitken, who has been stellar in the pipes. His eight saves against Lindenwood moved him into second place all-time, passing former keeper and former HCU head coach Benny Agosto, and he has allowed just 12 goals in 17 matches for a 0.71 GAA on the season, 11th in the nation.
The Huskies were rewarded for their solid regular season, as seven different players took home hardware when the league announced it's awards for the 2024 season.
In addition to individual aforementioned accolades for
Sam Zeeman and
Morgan Worsfold-Gregg, the pair also were tabbed with spots on the All-OVC first team. Worsfold-Gregg is the second straight HCU player to earn the rookie nod, joining
Ryan Okerayi, who was named last year. Okerayi was selected to the first team group for the second straight season as well.
Worsfold-Gregg was also named to the All-Newcomer team, where he was joined by
Theo Butterworth. The All-OVC second team had
Alex Aitken,
Ethan Giwa-McNeil and
D'Alessandro Herrera with Herrera earning all-league honors for the second consecutive season.
SIUE comes into the match led by first-team All-OVC goalkeeper Robert Gjelaj. He leads the league with 19 shutouts and has 79 saves in 18 matches for a 0.79 GAA, the only other keeper in the league besides Aitken with a sub-one GAA. The Cougars are paced on offense by Yasha Schaerer, who has three goals and eight assists and Nacho Abeal and Jacobo Sanfeliu, each with five goals.
Saturday marks just the sixth conference championship match in the school's history, the last coming in the aforementioned ASC title tilt against Adelphi in 2010. The Huskies were defeated 3-2 by Huston-Tillotson in the Red River Athletic Conference championship in 2006, the program's first year back after a 16-year hiatus. HCU previously won three Trans America Athletic Conference titles in four seasons, defeating Mercer in 1982 and Georgia State in 1984 and 1985.
The winner of the OVC Championship match earns a automatic berth into the NCAA National Tournament.
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