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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports men's soccer

IU forward transfers to Western Michigan

mens soccer fresh feature

Western Michigan added a new player to its roster Friday. A player Hoosier soccer fans should be fairly familiar with.

That player was Jay McIntosh, a sophomore forward who played last season in Bloomington for IU Coach Todd Yeagley and the ?Hoosiers.

But Friday, it was announced McIntosh would be returning home, to Kalamazoo, Mich., to continue his collegiate soccer career.

“I wanted to be closer to home,” McIntosh said. “My mom couldn’t come to all the games I played at IU just because of the long drive. Now I’ll be like a mile or two miles away from my house, so she can come to all my games.”

McIntosh said he was never homesick during his season at IU, but that the experience was different than what he wanted.

He said he liked the fan base and support he had back home in Michigan during his youth career and hopes playing at Western Michigan next season will replicate that ?experience.

Another aspect of McIntosh’s youth career he hopes returns next season is regular playing time.

“When I think about my youth career, I was playing every game and like 90 minutes,” McIntosh said. “So to come there and play as a substitution player was just different for me. It was never really what I wanted to do or what I went there to do.”

That’s what McIntosh missed most, he said. Simply being able to play full matches instead of quick 10-minute spurts while IU’s starters caught their breath or at the end of the match when he could hopefully have an extra step on a tired opposition’s back line.

McIntosh played in seven matches last season, with no starts. In those seven appearances, McIntosh registered four shots on target with one goal, a game-winner against Ohio State.

This comes after a youth career in which McIntosh scored 80 goals and registered 30 assists in three varsity seasons at Loy Norrix High School.

So McIntosh wanted to go somewhere he knew he was going to have the opportunity to play full matches and possibly replicate his high school success.

He said he didn’t know if IU was the place to do that.

“I wasn’t really sure,” McIntosh said of his potential playing time. “I was playing well, and I just kind of felt like it was a good time for me to go to another school. There’s no disrespect toward IU. Coach Yeagley helped me, and he was really supportive of what I ended up deciding.”

McIntosh is the second Hoosier to leave the team after last season. Senior Andrew Oliver left school for the spring semester, and his status on the Hoosiers is still undetermined. Oliver started 21 of IU’s 22 matches last season as the lone forward in IU’s 4-5-1 ?formation.

IU has also added two forwards in advance of the 2015 campaign with graduate transfer Ben Maurey and freshman Jordan Kleyn.

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