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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports men's soccer

Men’s soccer travels to South Bend for opener

soccer

The No. 17 IU men’s soccer team will open their season at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in South Bend with renewed expectations. They’ll take on No. 12 Notre Dame in the team’s first season opener on the road since 2006.

The Hoosiers were picked as the preseason favorite to win the Big Ten by conference coaches for the eighth time in the last nine years.

With the prestigious history of soccer at Indiana, senior Chris Estridge, who was one of three Hoosiers on the “Players To Watch” list, still feels the team needs to stay focused on the task at hand.

“I really expect us to come together as a team and really do well,” Estridge said. “I know they have us pegged as returning winners of the Big Ten, and that would really be a nice thing for us to accomplish.”

After last year’s 2-1 defeat by eventual national champion Akron in the Sweet 16, the Hoosiers are once again ranked in the top 25, but IU Coach Todd Yeagley feels very confident in what his team will be able to do this season.

“I see us doing very well in every game we play, and we have probably one of the toughest schedules in the country,” Yeagley said. “No question we can compete with any team.”

One of the biggest areas Yeagley had to address in the offseason was replacing four players that are no longer on the roster, including Will Bruin, who was drafted by the Houston Dynamo of the MLS.

“When you lose a lot of your scoring and basically four guys that are playing pro, those are some spots that new guys are going to have to step in and do pretty darn well at,” Yeagley said.

While the Hoosiers did lose some big-time talent from last year’s roster, Yeagley thinks it could benefit his team to have strong balance throughout the roster to count on in every game.

The Hoosiers solidified that balance by adding two players via transfer: sophomore defender Jamie Vollmer from Butler and sophomore midfielder A.J. Corrado from Southern Methodist University.

“We have a collection of players who, by committee, can get the job done with scoring goals, and oftentimes that’s a more balanced approach,” Yeagley said.

Vollmer thinks the key to getting off to a good start Saturday in South Bend is very simple: hit the ground running.

“We need an early goal,” Vollmer said. “We can play when we’re confident. No slow starts.”

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