On a beautiful fall evening in Haviland, KS, the Bears once again defended their home turf. They improved to 5-0 at home on the season as they took down NCCAA Division II #7 ranked Ozark Christian (Joplin, MO) in an MCCC and Southwest Region showdown.

Deadlocked at 0-0, the Ambassadors struck first after taking advantage of a miss-played ball by the Bears defense less than eight minutes into the second half.  Facing a deficit has seemed to bring out the best in the Bears this season, coming from behind to win in over half of their games thus far. Barely a minute later, freshman midfielder Melvin Lara out-maneuvered the Ambassador defense and found the back of the net to knot the score up at 1-1. The crowd went crazy and the Bears used that momentum to fuel another goal just moments later as Lara perfectly set up Freshman Eli Dahir on the left wing. Dahir’s shot, however, was blocked by the Ozark keeper only to find its way to the feet of Lara who knocked in his second goal of the match . The scoring frenzy would continue. This time Lara was on the assisting end as he set up Sophomore Kingsley Assibey on the counter-attack to build the lead to 3-1. In a matter of three minutes and eighteen seconds, the Bears, led by the incredible play of Lara, struck three times to take control of the game. Ozark, however, had plenty of life left. They capitalized on a penalty kick in the 78th minute  to come within one and then in the closing seconds of the match, had a shot deflect off the top bar before being cleared by the Bears defense.

The 3-2 win improves the Bears to 6-1 overall on the season, 3-0 in MCCC play, and 2-0 in SW Region play. One week from tomorrow, Saturday, September 28th, the Bears will host St. Louis Christian (Florissant, MO) at 2:00 PM CST. It will be the final home game for the Bears.