Hoosiers hold Irish scoreless in win

SOUTH BEND -- Four days ago, Mike Freitag said he witnessed the worst IU men's soccer game he's ever seen as his squad tied Ohio State, 2-2.\nLast night, the second-year coach said the cream and crimson played their best match all season.\nIU defeated Notre Dame 3-0 in front of 2,418 fans at Alumni Field at Notre Dame on a night when the temperature dropped to 40 degrees.\n"Everybody was clicked in, and everybody was tuned in," Freitag said. "As (Notre Dame coach Bobby Clark) said, 'that's the worst butt-kicking they've taken on this field in 10 years.' That's a nice compliment, and that's the way we can play."\nRanked No. 5 in the latest National Soccer Coaches Association of America poll, the Hoosiers got on the scoreboard first in the 31st minute. Freshman striker Lee Nguyen took a free kick from 25 yards out and blasted a bending shot into the goal on the far post over a wall of Irish and Hoosier players. The goal was Nguyen's fifth of the season.\n"A goal is a goal," Nguyen said. "But a goal like that is hard to forget."\nIU got on the scoreboard again in the 52nd minute when senior midfielder Mike Ambersley took a shot from 35 yards out, which deflected off the foot of a Notre Dame defender and past Irish goalkeeper Chris Cahill. Like Nguyen, Ambersley's goal was his fifth of the season.\nAfter re-entering the game in the 61st minute, junior forward Jacob Peterson tried to make an instant impact. He had a header from about 8 yards out which Cahill deflected. But Ambersley was able to get the deflection to sophomore midfielder Charley Traylor on the opposite side of the field. Traylor one-touched Ambersley's pass into the goal for his first career goal.\n"It's always nice scoring against good competition," Traylor said. "It means a little something more when you score against a team like Notre Dame."\nIt originally looked like IU scored for a second time in the 43rd minute when senior midfielder Brian Plotkin got past the defense, kicked the ball into the goal and celebration of the goal ensued. But Plotkin's goal was disallowed by the officials, who said he was offsides by about the length of a soccer cleat.\nThe win moved IU to 10-1-5 overall while the loss dropped Notre Dame to 9-6-2. Sophomore keeper Chris Munroe recorded his seventh clean sheet of the season along with corralling three saves. The Hoosiers also extended their nonconference record to 8-0-2.\nIU is now 23-3-1 all-time versus the Fighting Irish. This is the 19th straight year the IU men's soccer team has had 10 wins or more, a feat it has completed 32 out of the team's 33 seasons as a varsity program.\n"This is as good of an Indiana team as I've seen over the years," Clark said. "They pressured the hell out of us. They never let us settle at all into the game, and they made more scoring chances than we did over the piece"