# 2023 Ohio Valley Conference men's soccer tournament

The 2023 Ohio Valley Conference men's soccer tournament was the inaugural edition of the Ohio Valley Conference men's soccer tournament. The tournament decided the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) champion and automatic qualifier (AQ) into the 2023 NCAA Division I men's soccer tournament. All games were played at Ralph Korte Stadium in Edwardsville, Illinois.

## Background

Before the 2022 season, only two OVC members—Eastern Illinois and SIU Edwardsville (SIUE)—sponsored men's soccer, respectively playing that sport in the Summit League and Missouri Valley Conference (MVC).
In February 2022, two NCAA Division II schools that sponsored men's soccer, Lindenwood and Southern Indiana, announced that they would start transitions to Division I and join the OVC that July. Both schools initially placed men's soccer in the Summit League, joining Eastern Illinois.
The OVC still had only four men's soccer schools, two short of the number required for a conference to receive an automatic bid to the Division I tournament. However, further developments in conference realignment would give the OVC the opportunity to add enough members to start a men's soccer league.
Incarnate Word (UIW), a member of the Southland Conference (SLC), announced in November 2021 that it would join the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) the following July. Since the SLC sponsors soccer only for women, UIW was then housing men's soccer in the WAC. However, only a week before the full-time move to the WAC would have taken effect, UIW announced it would remain in the SLC. The WAC then removed UIW from its men's soccer league, although it never made an official announcement, and UIW played the 2022 season as in independent.
Also in November 2021, Liberty, then a full member of the ASUN Conference (which sponsors men's soccer) and an FBS independent in football, announced that it would join the FBS Conference USA (C-USA) in 2023. However, C-USA would shut down its men's soccer league after the 2021 season, with all of its men's soccer members joining other conferences for 2022. This left Liberty without a men's soccer home.
Chicago State, which had been a geographic outlier for most of its tenure as a full WAC member, announced it would leave that conference in 2022. It was unable to find a full-time conference home, becoming an all-sports independent, but found a men's soccer home in the Mid-American Conference (MAC). However, the MAC had lost men's soccer associate SIUE to the MVC in 2021 and would lose West Virginia to the SBC in 2022. After the departure of West Virginia, the MAC had only five men's soccer members, one short of the six needed to maintain its automatic bid. After failing to find the needed sixth member, the MAC shut down its men's soccer league after the 2022 season.
The OVC then announced on March 28, 2023 that it would add men's soccer as a sponsored sport effective with the 2023 season. The new league would include full members Eastern Illinois, Lindenwood, SIUE, and Southern Indiana, plus affiliates Chicago State, Houston Christian, Liberty, and UIW.

## Qualification

The top six teams in the Ohio Valley Conferencel earned berths in the OVC Tournament, which was held November 5, 8 & 11 in Edwardsville, Illinois on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The OVC Soccer Conference is divided into two divisions---Members and Affiliates. The first-place finishers in each division are seeds 1 and 2 and received first round byes.
All teams were eligible for the OVC Tournament, including both reclassifying teams. Lindenwood and Southern Indiana, were eligible to compete in and win the OVC Tournament this season. Should one of them win the OVC Tournament Championship, the AQ shall be awarded to the tournament runner-up. If the tournament runner-up is also a transitioning school, the AQ representative shall be the third-place team. If the established tie-breaker criteria cannot determine the third-placed team, the AQ shall be the semifinal team that had the highest seed on entry to the tournament.

## Bracket

| Quarterfinals November 5 ESPN+ | Quarterfinals November 5 ESPN+ | Quarterfinals November 5 ESPN+ | Semifinals November 8 ESPN+ | Semifinals November 8 ESPN+ | Semifinals November 8 ESPN+ | Final November 11 ESPN+ | Final November 11 ESPN+ | Final November 11 ESPN+ |
| | | | 1 | SIU Edwardsville | 2 | | | |
| 4 | Lindenwood | 2 | 4 | Lindenwood | 0 | | | |
| 5 | Chicago State | 0 | | | | 1 | SIU Edwardsville | 1 |
| | | | | | | 2 | Incarnate Word | 0 |
| | | | 2 | Incarnate Word | 1 | | | |
| 3 | Liberty | 0 (1) | 6 | Eastern Illinois | 0 | | | |
| 6 | Eastern Illinois (pen.) | 0 (3) | | | | | | |

## Statistics
### Goalscorers

There were 6 goals scored in 5 matches, for an average of 1.2 goals per match. Players highlighted in bold are still active in the competition.
3 goals
* Ignacio Abeal Pou – SIUE
1 goal
* Matteo Boasso – Lindenwood
* Ethan Blake – Lindenwood
* Sello Diphoko – Incarnate Word

## All-Tournament team

Source:
| Player | Team |
| 2023 OVC Men's Soccer All-Tournament team ||
| Felipe Kerr Lourenco | Eastern Illinois |
| Maxwell Allen | Eastern Illinois |
| Cameron Caldwell | Lindenwood |
| Matteo Boasso | Lindenwood |
| Luis Zuniga | UIW |
| Dylan Navarijo | UIW |
| Will Ansah | UIW |
| Sam Gomez | SIUE |
| Sam Layton | SIUE |
| Aaron Crabtree | SIUE |
| Ignacio "Nacho" Abeal Pou | SIUE |
MVP in Bold

## Footnotes

* ↑ Specifically: The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) announced it would reinstate its men's soccer league in 2022 after a one-season hiatus. Four of the revived league's inaugural members came from C-USA. Coastal Carolina was a full SBC member that had housed men's soccer in C-USA; Marshall and Old Dominion were previously full C-USA members before becoming full SBC members; and Kentucky had been a C-USA men's soccer associate. Another new SBC associate, West Virginia, had been a Mid-American Conference (MAC) member in men's soccer, but had announced a move to C-USA for that sport before switching to the SBC. The American Athletic Conference (The American) announced that the remaining four C-USA men's soccer members—Charlotte, FIU, Florida Atlantic, and UAB—would join its men's soccer league starting in 2022. Three of the four schools (all but FIU) were set to become full members of The American in 2023.