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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

sports

Team travels to Maryland, competes in classic

The men's soccer team opened the 2000 season with as tough a schedule as anybody, losing to top-5 teams Portland and UCLA in its first two games.\nAs strange as it may sound, the Hoosiers' next two games may be tougher than the first.\nIU travels to Maryland today, to play in the Maryland Classic, where the Hoosiers will meet Maryland, ranked as high as eighth, and Virginia, a top-5 team.\nIU coach Jerry Yeagley expects both games to be tough.\n"If we thought it was tough this weekend, it's gonna' be a lot tougher (at Maryland)," he said. "I mean, we're at their place, playing two veteran teams ' Virginia returning everybody and Maryland returning a team that outplayed us last year here. It's a crucial time. Yet, I wouldn't change it.\n"We have a chance to redeem ourselves. If we could get one victory against one of those two teams, then we'd be 1-3, and yet I'd feel pretty good about it ' if we played well."\nYeagley said the Hoosiers hope to play well by building on their last game, a 2-1 loss to UCLA.\nAgainst the Bruins, IU rebounded from a poor performance against Portland to outplay UCLA for much of the match. The Hoosiers outshot the Bruins 16-9 and controlled play throughout the second half.\nThat solid play against UCLA leaves the Hoosiers with something positive to look back on heading into this weekend.\n"We showed a lot, going down 2-0 against a top-5 team, that you can come back, get a goal and dominate and have that many scoring chances," sophomore midfielder Pat Noonan said. "It shows character of our team, but we got to finish those chances.\n"For us to be a winning team, we got to finish them."\nThe Hoosiers did indeed have trouble finishing against both Portland and UCLA. IU's strikers didn't get as many scoring opportunities as their midfielders and couldn't convert the chances they did get. Noonan and junior midfielder Ryan Mack created the most opportunities for IU, with Noonan scoring the team's only goal of the weekend.\nYeagley altered the lineup somewhat last weekend to generate more offense and said he might do the same this weekend.\nIn Noonan, Mack and sophomore midfielder Phil Presser, Yeagley has three players he can use in several positions. The most effective change against UCLA was playing Mack as a striker and moving Presser to the center midfield.\nYeagley said he'll make adjustments according to what the situation requires. And whatever situation his players encounter this weekend, he thinks they're ready for it.\n"I tell you what, these guys aren't dreading going to Maryland," Yeagley said. "They're looking forward to it. They're looking at this as an opportunity to show what they can do."\nAnd they're looking to win.\n"That's something that we can always put in the back of our heads, you know, that we know the feeling of losing," senior goalkeeper T.J. Hannig said. "And I don't think anybody on the team wants to experience that too many more times, if at all"

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