Not only did the IU defense prevent an Evansville attack from scoring, it was solely responsible for the Hoosiers’ first goal.
IU earned a corner kick in the seventh minute of the match. Senior outside back Patrick Doody sent in the corner where he found the head of freshman central defender Grant Lillard, who nodded home the eventual game winner.
“We’ve been working on those a lot in practice,” Lillard said. “It was good to see that work pay off.”
The goal was Lillard’s fourth of the season, second most on the team. The assist was Doody’s fourth of the season, also second best on the team.
This season, IU’s defense has contributed seven goals and seven assists to the the team’s offensive attack, totaling 21 points.
IU didn’t stop pressing Evansville after the first goal. In the first half, IU had nine shots, eight of which were on frame.
“It was great,” IU Coach Todd Yeagley said. “We were really focusing on that in training with all our finishing activities and trying to put the ball on frame. We have to make sure we at least make the keeper try and make ?a save.”
IU’s pressure also carried over to its defensive effort. The attackers set a high line defensively, making it difficult for Evansville to move the ball up from defense into attack, which is how they prefer to play.
“We just read their passes well,” Yeagley said. “Our first wave of pressure made it fairly predictable where the ball was going next. That’s where Grant, Derek, Doody and Billy can read things.”
Evansville’s first shot on goal did not come until the 39th minute, a weak header by junior Nate Opperman that hardly troubled IU’s sophomore goalkeeper Colin Webb.
“It was huge for us,” junior Femi Hollinger-Janzen said. “We just came out attacking and taking the ball to goal.”
The ninth and final shot of the first half came from junior Femi Hollinger-Janzen.
After receiving the pass from junior Matt Foldesy to the left of the six-yard box, Hollinger-Janzen turned and fired his shot into the upper 90 for his team-leading fifth goal of the season.
After halftime IU stifled an Evansville attack that Yeagley praised coming into the game for its athletic and technical ability moving ?forward.
“We had great team pressure the entire game,” Lillard said. “They were really trying to build it out of the back and we kept picking off their passes. They had trouble dealing with it.”
Evansville did not only fail to force Webb to make a save in the second half, but it failed to get a shot off until the 88th minute.
The IU attack maintained pressure against Evansville in the second half, taking 13 shots. Only one of these forced a save out of Evansville senior goalkeeper Eric Teppen.
IU will travel to Wisconsin on Sunday for its penultimate match of both the Big Ten and regular season.
“If we were a little bit sharper in the second half with the looks we had we might have had a few more on the scoreboard,” Yeagley said.
