{"id":237028,"date":"2025-10-24T13:43:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/237028\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T13:43:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:43:08","slug":"western-michigan-mens-soccer-hosts-bowling-green-in-key-matchup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/237028\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Michigan men’s soccer hosts Bowling Green in key matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"

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KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The Western Michigan men’s soccer team welcomes Bowling Green to The Farm for a match with postseason implications.<\/p>\n

LAST TIME OUT

\nWestern Michigan battled\u00a0through the rain to a 3-2 victory against the Bradley Braves last weekend in Peoria, Ill.\u00a0Three Broncos scored in their first road win and Missouri Valley Conference win of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

It was a big night for the WMU forwards despite rainy conditions through all 90 minutes on Saturday evening. Seniors\u00a0Jonathan Stout<\/a>,\u00a0Roni Sylejmani<\/a>, and sophomore\u00a0Sahel Yessen<\/a>\u00a0each added a score in the Brown and Gold’s victory. Yessen also led Western Michigan in shots with five attempts and points as he added an assist in the second half.<\/p>\n

MULTIPLE GAME WINNERS

\nWith his goal in the 67th minute against Bradley, Sylejmani became one of only eight players in the Missouri Valley Conference to net more than one game-winning goal. Sylejmani had his first game-winning goal of 2025 in the Broncos first win of the season against New Hampshire on Labor Day. In the 74th minute against the Wildcats,\u00a0a light touch from graduate forward Piero Sabroso<\/a> by the left post of the goal gave Sylejmani a perfect right footed shot to put the ball back into the bottom right corner.<\/p>\n

Two game-winning goals makes Sylejmani fourth in the MVC in the category, while he is 49th overall among Division I players. The current Valley leader in game-winning goals will face off against Sylejmani on Saturday afternoon in Bowling Green forward Trace Terry.<\/p>\n

TOP TEN FROM THE CORNERS

\nWMU continues to climb up the national rankings for corner kicks through 90 minutes. The Brown and Gold added seven corners while at Shea Stadium bringing their total for the season up to 95 corner kicks. Western Michigan currently averages 6.79 corner kicks a game, making them ninth among all 213 Division I programs. Duke is the current national leader in corner kicks per game, averaging a whopping 8.93 corners.<\/p>\n

POSTSEASON IMPLICATIONS

\nWith only three games left in the regular season, teams are turning their eyes to their standings for the upcoming MVC Tournament. The Broncos currently sit in the final postseason spot with five points in Valley play along with Belmont. Bowling Green sits just behind WMU in the standings with three points, only having one conference victory and no draws.<\/p>\n

A win on Saturday afternoon for the Brown and Gold would give Western Michigan eight points on the season, putting them in a strong position to make the postseason. Whereas if the Falcons lost on Saturday, they would need to win out the season and for the Broncos to lose out the season to jump WMU in the standings.<\/p>\n

SCOUTING THE FALCONS

\nAfter being picked second in the MVC Preseason Poll, Bowling Green has had a tough season on the pitch. The Falcons have an overall record of 5-7-2 but have a Valley record of only 1-3. Bowling Green has won matches this season against Wright State, Michigan State, DePaul, Northern Kentucky, and Bradley. And it will be a long stretch on the road to end the season for the Falcons as they play two of their last three games away from Cochrane Stadium.<\/p>\n

Bowling Green is led by the dynamic offensive forward duo of senior\u00a0Trace Terry and junior Bennett Painter. Between the two forwards, they have scored 13 of the Falcons 14 goals through the 2025 season and have taken 72 of the team’s 146 shots for almost 50% of Bowling Green’s offense. With eight goals on the season so far, Terry is second in the MVC and 18th nationally in total goals for 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Story Links KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The Western Michigan men’s soccer team welcomes Bowling Green…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-237028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}