🆚 Western Illinois University
📆 Sunday – November 8, 2026
⏰ 4 pm CT
🏟️ Hunter Stadium – St. Charles, Missouri
📺
WATCH
📈 LIVE STATS
🗒 GAME NOTES
Houston Christian University faces off with Western Illinois University Sunday afternoon in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament. Kick-off is slated for 4 pm from Hunter Stadium on the campus of Lindenwood University, the tournament host, top-seed and defending champion.
Head Coach
Ryan Pratt now in his 10th season at the helm has the Huskies at 6-7-5 overall to go with a 4-3-3 finish in conference action after a regular-season ending 4-0 thumping of UTRGV last Sunday on "Senior Day".
At just before the half-hour, HCU broke the ice on a fantastic finish from
Ryan Okerayi off a beautiful build-up and final needle-threading pass from
Aidan Lopez. Okerayi would then score just seven minutes out of the intermission on another fine assist from Lopez through traffic to give HCU a 2-0 lead.
Marcos Moore and
Jess Degenaers would add exclamation points, both scoring with under 10 minutes to go.
The victory secured HCU's place in the tournament with a fourth-place finish with 15 points. Western Illinois won two games last week to surge into the playoff field and to the fifth seed. The winner of Sunday's match will face top-seed Lindenwood, who earned one of the two first-round tournament byes along with SIUE.
Through the regular season,
Ryan Okerayi continues to pace the club, now with six goals and six assists. He is tied for first in the conference in assists, tied for seventh in goals and third in points (18). His assist versus Incarnate Word moved him into a tie for fifth place all-time in that category while his goal against Eastern Illinois two weeks ago was the 25th of his career. He is one of just seven players in school history with 20 or more goals, and he now has 27 for his career.
Marcos Moore now has five goals on the season, just ahead of the four from
Clarenns Sainrimat. Degenaers has two goals and five assists, second on the club, while Lopez chips in a pair of scores and helpers as well.
Callum Niven and
Ricardo Garcia also have two goals.
Hans Leza and
Ricardo Garcia have continued to be mainstays on the pitch for HCU. Leza now sits fourth all-time at HCU in minutes played with 5,754 while Garcia has moved up to seventh-place all-time with 5,259. Leza has now played in 69 career matches for the Huskies with 67 starts, moving him into the Top 10 all-time in each category and for his career has been on the pitch from start to finish 50 times.
Garcia has now played in 74 matches for the Huskies, and his next appearance on the pitch will make him the program's all-time leader in games played.
Harvey Heeps has been solid in his debut season in the pipes after taking over from OVC Goalkeeper of the Year
Alex Aitken. The redshirt freshman has 60 saves through 18 matches, including a career-high nine against then No. 5 and now No. 2 SMU. He was been named Keeper of the Week twice and has four clean sheets on the season. He ranks second in the OVC in saves, saves per game (3.33) and shutouts , and third in goals against (1.62) and save percentage (.674).
The Huskies had five players named to the
Ohio Valley Conference All-Conference teams, including Ricardo Garcia who was selected as the Midfielder of the Year. He was joined on the first team by
Ryan Okerayi, who becomes the first player in league history to be named first-team four times.
Nico Kross,
Harvey Heeps and
Marcos Moore earned second-team recognition, with Heeps and Moore being selected to the All-Newcomer team.
HCU and WIU are meeting for the second time this season, with the first matchup coming on October 15 in Macomb, Illinois. The Huskies won 3-0 in a game decided ultimately by two late scores in the final five minutes that gave HCU insurance.
Marcos Moore scored the opener in the 53rd minute before an own goal in the 86th and a capper by
Aidan Lopez in the 89th.
The Huskies now lead the all-time series 3-1-1. Incidentally, the series dates to 1985, a 2-2 draw between the two in Macomb. The schools would then not match up again until HCU joined the OVC. HCU won 3-0 in 2024 in Houston, and the schools split a pair last year, both winning on their own turf by a one-nil scoreline.
Kooten Johnson is in his second season at the helm of his alma mater. The former All-Conference standout took over for his father, longtime head coach Dr. Eric Johnson. The Leathernecks finished the regular season 6-9-3 overall and 4-5-1 in OVC play, winning their final two matches of the season to vault from out of the postseason hunt to the fifth seed in a matter of four days.
The Leathernecks are paced on offense by senior standout forward Xavier Gagnon. His eight goals on the campaign is tied for second in the league and leads a team that has seen 11 different players hit the back of the net. George Frost, a junior midfielder, sits right behind with seven goals, third in the league, while graduate forward Jack Schwering is the club leader in helpers with six, which places him in a three-way tie for the league lead.
Junior keeper Harvey Bolland has started 14 of WIU's 18 matches. He is 3-7-2 overall with 32 saves and a 1.71 GAA. Drew Heller has taken over the last three games, which included the two all-important wins over SIUE and Southern Indiana the final weekend. He has a 3-2-1 overall mark and 15 saves while allowing just six goals on the season.
Get all your Ohio Valley Conference tournament information at the links below.
FULL OHIO VALLEY CONFERENCE POSTSEASON HONORS
OVC TOURNAMENT CENTRAL | OVC TOURNAMENT BRACKET | OVC TOURNAMENT TICKETS
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