KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- The Western Michigan men's soccer team plays its final regular season match at The Farm this Friday while celebrating its 13 seniors prior to the match.

LAST TIME OUT
The Broncos earned another crucial point in the race to the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament on Saturday afternoon in a 1-1 tie with Bowling Green. WMU came just minutes away from taking all three points in Saturday's match with the Falcons. But a penalty kick in the 82nd minute gave Bowling Green the equalizer to keep the match at only a draw.

The Brown and Gold led for most of the match as sophomore forward Sahel Yessen had a career game against the Falcons. Yessen scored Western Michigan's lone goal in the 25th minute and took a team-high nine shots for a new career record. Also active on offense for the Broncos was senior forward Jonathan Stout with four shots and redshirt freshman winger Liam Smith with three. 

KEEP THE CORNERS COMING
WMU had another active match from the corners against Bowling Green last week. With 14 corners, it was the Brown and Gold's fourth match this season with double-digit set pieces and their second highest match of the season. Western Michigan is now getting 1.5 more corner kick attempts than its opponents with 109 corners through 15 matches.

The Broncos have moved up three spots nationally in corner kicks per game as they average 7.27 corners through 90 minutes. WMU is sixth in the nation and leads the MVC by 1.20 corner kicks from the second ranked conference team, the UIC Flames. 

POSTSEASON PERSPECTIVE
With only two regular season matches left for all Valley teams, the race to the MVC Tournament is tightening. The top six teams after the final matches on Wednesday, Nov. 5 will make the conference postseason in mid-November. The Brown and Gold currently sit tied for fourth with UIC with six points each. But the final seeds are still anyone's game as there is a three-way tie for first place going into this weekend's matches.

Western Michigan still has the potential to end up as the number one seed if the Broncos win their last two matches of the season and the current top three teams don't win their last two matches. WMU can finish the season anywhere from the first seed to just missing the postseason depending on results over the next week. 

SCOUTING THE BULLDOGS
Drake comes into Friday's match as one of the three teams tied for first place in the Valley. The Bulldogs are tied with Northern Illinois and Evansville with nine points apiece. Drake has the best overall season record of the three teams at 7-1-6 through 14 matches. The Bulldogs only loss of 2025 came to former MVC opponent Missouri State in Springfield, Mo. 

Drake is led on the pitch by sophomore forward Preston Kipnusu and junior midfielder Jackson Kirsch with nine points each. Kipnusu leads the team in scoring with four goals but Kirsch is right behind him with three. Kirsch leads the team in assists with three helpers along with freshman forward Crew Alvarez. In net, the Bulldogs have mostly used sophomore Tomas Butkovic as he has spent 1,241 minutes in goal. Butkovic has a save percentage of 81.8% with seven shutouts this year.