Men's soccer looks to ace Evansville, add to win streak

There is a juggling act at Bill Armstrong Stadium this week following the IU men’s soccer team’s 3-2 win against Penn State last Friday.

A goal by junior forward Will Bruin with 11 seconds to play against the Nittany Lions gave the Hoosiers its first Big Ten win.

Now, the team toes the line between using the emotion of a conference road win as
motivation while trying to prepare for a familiar in-state foe in Evansville.

“You’ve got to look in the mirror occasionally behind and see what you did well and what you didn’t,” IU coach Todd Yeagley said. “We know that if we just stay composed, don’t lose composure in tight matches, we have the players that can win the game for us.”

It is not out of the question to think that when Evansville comes to Bloomington at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Purple Aces might give IU a tight match.

Two of the last three meetings have been one-goal decisions, but familiarity between players gives Wednesday’s match further intrigue. Evansville enters the game with six Indianapolis-area players who played club or high school soccer with six IU players from the same region of the state.

“I’m not from the Midwest, but I’ve been here long enough. The rivalry’s there,” said senior midfielder Daniel Kelly, a Hendersonville, Tenn., native. “We have a few guys who have played club together on both sides of the ball, so you know their tendencies. You know they probably want to be in your shoes, so you’ve got to defend the IU logo."

Trying to stop the Purple Aces from accomplishing that goal is a red-hot Bruin, who on Monday was named the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week for the second time this month. He leads the team with six goals in seven games and has just three goals left to match his career-high nine goals from last season.

“It’s all about staying focused for the full 90 minutes,” he said.

For Bruin, Kelly and the rest of the team, focusing the full 90 minutes is a game-by-game process that continues Wednesday as the 4-3 Hoosiers try to continue their two-game win streak.

“You just want to take the positives from last week and the previous weeks and just try to build on them, get the ball rolling and get a win streak going,” Kelly said.

If they do that, Bruin said IU could really have something special.

“You can expect a lot of wins the rest of the season,” he said.