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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports men's soccer

Men's soccer travels to South Bend for weekend games

Todd Yeagley’s senior year — in 1994 — was the last time IU faced Drake in a regular season game.

Sixteen years later, the new IU coach and his team will play Drake in the Mike Berticelli Tournament on Sunday in South Bend. Those 16 years in between, though, aren’t something Yeagley wants to talk about.

“These guys don’t need to hear the history,” Yeagley said. “They hear enough about the old days.”

Luckily for the Hoosier squad, there is some current history between the No. 18  Hoosiers and the No. 22 Bulldogs.

In 2009, IU opened up their preseason matches with a 2-1 loss to Drake.

“Some of these upperclassman are like, ‘Yeah we remember that game,’” Yeagley said. “They’re a little bit upset because we lost to them. There’s a little extra motivation from last year’s preseason.”

Senior Andy Adlard is one of those upperclassmen.

“They were very blue collared, fight-hard team, so we’re going to have to be ready for a fight against them,” Adlard said. “We know the game this week isn’t going to be as open and free-flowing. It’s going to be a lot more Big Ten style, where it’s fight hard, get into tackles. We’re trying to get the mindset that it’s going to be like that.”

Before IU faces Drake, the Hoosiers will meet up with a new opponent, Cal Poly from San Luis Obispo, Calif. on Friday.

“Cal Poly is a team that’s a very good team out west,” Yeagley said. “They’re hardworking, and they’re disciplined, and they have some guys that can break you down. Yet we can’t lose sight on where we need to go as a group and how every game is its own chapter within this journey.”

The two chapters written by IU so far have been a season-opening loss and an upset of No. 5 UCLA for a win. Both Cal Poly and IU enter the game with a 1-1 record.

“We’re all trying to fight for that 2-1 spot,” Adlard said. “We’re all looking for those results. It’ll be good if we can get two results this weekend, no matter how we get them, but we do want to play well.”

Something the Hoosiers struggled with last season was scoring goals in the first half. IU scored in the first half of only four times during their regular season games.

Last weekend IU scored three first half goals, which is something Adlard said the team has put an emphasis on.

“We’ve just been doing some stuff to get sharp on the final pass in the final third, to get our chances and score some,” Adlard said. “It’s paying off.”

Coming off that five-goal win over UCLA on Sunday, the team is trying to keep their
emotions intact.

“I was pleased with the way the group has handled that big win on Sunday,” Yeagley said. “It’s a good win. We enjoyed it, learned from it, but it’s not going to entitle us to anything on Friday, and they know that.”

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