IU heads to South Bend for weekend tournament

After a successful weekend in the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic, the No. 4-ranked Hoosiers will be traveling to South Bend to compete in the Mike Berticelli Tournament hosted by Notre Dame.\nIU will face Northern Illinois at 5:00 p.m. Friday and Rhode Island at 11:30 a.m. Saturday. IU coach Mike Freitag said both matches will be tough. \n“Both teams have quality programs, and I worry about these types of games, because it’s easy to get up for the two games (one) weekend against Maryland and UCLA at home with great fans supporting you,” Freitag said. “But now we’re going to a neutral site and we’re ranked higher, so we’ll see how focused we are, because both teams can knock off anybody on a given day if they’re not ready.”\nThe Hoosiers faced Northern Illinois in the NCAA tournament last year, and came out with a 1-0 win in a tight game. Freitag said Northern Illinois is a tough opponent, and he expects them to play a physical game.\n“They’re a very direct team, and they get after the ball,” Freitag said. “We have to be ready to challenge and also be good on the ball, because if we take care of the ball, they’ll get fewer opportunities to launch balls into our box.”\nIU will go into this weekend tournament with a record of 1-0-1 after a 1-1 tie with now No. 6-ranked Maryland and a 1-0 victory against now-No. 11-ranked UCLA last weekend. The Hoosiers went the distance this weekend, playing all the way through overtime with Maryland and grabbing the UCLA win in the dying minutes of the match with goals in each match from junior forward Kevin Noschang, who was named both NSCAA Player of the Week and Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week for his efforts. \nSophomore defender Ofori Sarkodie said the Hoosiers learned a lot from last weekend’s games. \n“We learned a lot about ourselves and the depth of our team,” Sarkodie said. “I think we learned a lot about the characteristics of the team and the personalities of ourselves. This weekend, we learned how hard we have to work, and we want to make sure we stay sharp technically, mentally and physically.” \nThough both Northern Illinois and Rhode Island made the NCAA tournament last year, junior forward George Tembon said he expects the Hoosiers to perform well this weekend.\n“They’re Division I programs, so I’m sure they’ll bring their A-game and play hard. But we’re going to come out and continue what we’ve been doing this season,” Tembon said. “We have the right personnel and everyone seems to have the same goal, and I feel we should have a lot of success.”\nThe Hoosiers have thus far performed well against exceptional competition this season. Despite that good start, Freitag said he still wants to see better play from his team.\n“We played two good teams, so the guys know what level (the) competition is at, but we are making mistakes that we need to make sure to get cleaned up,” Freitag said. “I love the energy, the fight and the hustle that we had this past weekend. But if you keep making the same mistakes, sooner or later, they’ll catch up to you.”