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Monday, March 18
The Indiana Daily Student

sports

Hoosiers utilize sniffers, bagels

IU Men's Soccer

IU scored a pair of sniffers over the weekend and recorded a bagel.

A bagel is what IU Coach Todd Yeagley calls a shutout. A sniffer is what Yeagley calls a goal scored from a rebound, and they are how IU scored its only two goals in the IU Credit Union Classic.

Sunday’s sniffer came from freshman Michael Riedford off of a rebound from sophomore ?Tanner Thompson’s shot. It was the only goal in IU’s 1-0 win against Marquette, which made them co-champions of the classic.

“Coach always capitalizes sniffers during practice,” Reidford said. “Rebounds are a big thing. Tanner looked me off. I knew he was going to shoot. The shot took a deflection, the keeper made a good save but fortunately I was there.”

The first sniffer came against Georgetown on Friday when junior Femi Hollinger-Janzen slotted home a rebound once again originating from Tanner Thompson.

The anatomy of a sniffer seems simple, but it really takes a good deal of both mental and physical skill.

The shot must have enough power and be placed well enough to force a save that the keeper can’t control. If the power and direction are not good enough, the keeper can either catch the ball or parry it to safety.

For both sniffers, the goalie had to frantically lunge to redirect Thompson’s well-powered shot, taking away any control the keeper might have over what happened next.

In both cases what happened next was a goal, which also would not have been possible without the keen positioning of Hollinger-Janzen on the first goal or Riedford on the second.

On Friday, Hollinger-Janzen was stationed near the top of the box. This was the optimal place for him to stand considering where Thompson was taking the shot from.

Thompson was to the left of goal, a few yards off the end line. Due to Thompson’s position, this meant his shot would have to go right at Georgetown goalkeeper Tomas Gomez. A shot like that creates one of two rebounds, either directly back to Thompson or to where Hollinger-Janzen was situated.

On Sunday, Riedford made a run toward the right post as Thompson was ?shooting.

Thompson had the ball going left to right near the top of the box and tried to curl it around the left side of Marquette’s keeper Charlie Lyon. This meant that Lyon would have to lunge to his left, creating a rebound opportunity either directly in front of him or at the post where Riedford made his run.

When Riedford was asked how the term “sniffer” originated, he said it was Yeagley’s term. When Yeagley was asked the same question, he didn’t know, either.

“I don’t know,” Yeagley said. “Just smelling things out and being right on top of it. We might use a few other adjectives than that, but it’s a good thing. It’s the mentality of always being right there and trying to get something.”

As for the term bagels, Yeagley has decided to reward his players with bagels the day after they record a shutout.

“It’s a new promo,” Yeagley said. “I’m really excited our marketing department did a nice job to play off something that we knew was going to be important this year, losing 70 percent of our scoring.”

The bagels also shut out potential distractions such as national rankings.

“What I loved was that there wasn’t any talk about that,” Yeagley said. “They were talking about the bagels. They want their bagels tomorrow.”

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