The Illinois State womens soccer team opens the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament on Sunday at noon as they take on the SMS Bears at Adelaide Street Field. Already this season, the Birds, 10-5-3, faced the Bears, 8-4-4, and played to a double overtime scoreless tie.
Teams advancing to the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament are No. 1 seed Drake, No. 2 Creighton, No. 3 Indiana State, No. 4 Illinois State, No. 5 SMS and No. 6 Northern Iowa.
Head coach Pete Kowall is looking forward to Sundays game and is excited to play at home.
Its certainly nice that we are able to host a game at home, said Kowall. SMS is a very good team, we played well against them earlier this season.
SMS, the No. 5 seed in the tournament, defeated Drury, 3-0, in order to advance to the Sunday game against Illinois State. The No. 4 seeded Redbirds earned a home play-in game after finishing 3-3-2 in Valley play. This will be the seventh time that the Redbirds have faced SMS in the Valley Tournament. Last season, the Birds opened the valley tourney against SMS in the semi-final holding the Bears to just four shots and earned a 1-0 victory.
The Redbirds have faced SMS 14 times and have compiled a 9-3-3 record against them.
We have definitely played well at home this season, said Kowall. Theyre a good team, they arent going to just come here and roll over.
The winner of Sundays game will advance to the State Farm MVC semi-finals on November 5 that will be held at Drake.
