Top-Seed Baker Advances to Heart Title Match with 3-1 Victory over Statesmen

BALDWIN CITY - For the first time since 2017, Baker men's soccer will play in the Heart Conference Tournament Championship after earning a 3-1 victory over No. 4 seed William Penn here Friday night at Hartley Field in the Heart Semifinals.

With the victory, BU moves on to the championship match and will host No. 2 seed MidAmerica Nazarene on Tuesday in Baldwin City for the tournament title. The Pioneers defeated Grand View, 2-0, in a semifinal match in Olathe, Kan., earlier in the day.

After the Statesmen scored first, the Wildcats rattled off three straight goals in an action-packed first half and held on to their two-goal advantage throughout a frantic, but scoreless, second half for BU's seventh straight win.

William Penn struck first in the 11th minute after a long volley sent forward into the box allowed WPU's Albert Feixas to get a touch on it for the game-opening goal.

That's about as good as it would get for the Statesmen though, as Mo Salas' strike in the 14th minute quickly tied things back up. The senior midfielder followed up Chafik El Idrissi's free kick that was punched out by the WPU keeper and delivered the game-tying tally to bring us back even after less than five minutes of separation.

Then, just a few minutes later, Utah Hester knocked in what would go down as the game-winner after his header finished off a corner kick entry from Akira Itadani to give the Wildcats a 2-1 lead less than 20 minutes into the match.

With time winding down in the half, Baker tacked on one final goal with an incredible run from David Reid as the speedy forward legged out a footrace with the Statesmen goalie, who came all the way out of his box. Reid reached the ball first and was able to fire off a shot before any Statesmen could recover to cap the four-goal first half.

Following the offensive firepower of the first 45 minutes, the second half calmed down from a scoring standpoint, but the intensity would pick up midway through as William Penn looked to cut into the deficit.

BU starting keeper Maxot Arystanov made a couple of saves over the final 16 minutes to preserve the lead and hold the Statesmen scoreless for 79 minutes straight after the early goal. It ended up being the 12th victory of the year for Arystanov, who has gone 12 straight matches without allowing multiple goals.

Baker held a slight edge in shots taken in the first half at 5-4, but WPU launched eight in the second half to finish with a 12-10 advantage. Each side earned five corner kicks on the night, with the Wildcats scoring off their first and only corner of the first half.

Both Salas and Reid notched their second goals of the year, giving Salas multiple goals in a season for the first time in his career. Hester's goal was his third of the fall and his second straight after scoring the game-winner in Baker's 2-1 victory over William Woods in Tuesday's quarterfinals.

After securing the program's 14th regular-season title last week, the Wildcats head to the championship game of the Heart Conference Tournament for the first time since 2017. The last time BU won the conference tournament was in 2014, as the second of back-to-back titles.

Baker will host the 2025 Heart Men's Soccer Conference Tournament Championship and face MNU on Tuesday, Nov. 11, at Hartley Field with kickoff time to be determined. BU fell to MNU, 1-0, at home back on September 6 to start conference play.

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