After two consecutive disappointing road results, the Hoosiers are hoping for a victory.
The Hoosiers lost 1-0 to Penn State last Sunday. The failure to score a goal against Penn State stretched their run to 380 minutes without scoring against the Nittany Lions.
IU’s offense was more potent Wednesday night, though, as it raced to a two-goal lead within 15 minutes of the first half against Butler at the Butler Bowl.
“It was a clinic in the first half,” IU Coach Todd Yeagley said. “I haven’t seen an IU team pull them apart like that, they had nothing.”
A reshuffled offense saw senior forward Femi Hollinger-Janzen spearheading the attack in place of graduate transfer Ben Maurey.
Freshman Rece Buckmaster also came in on the right hand side of the attack to fill the void left by moving Hollinger-Janzen up top.
The reshuffle looked to be a tactical success as the Hoosier attack helped IU to an early two-goal lead, and Buckmaster even managed to get his first goal of the season.
“I thought all the guys that came in did an excellent job,” Yeagley said.
However, Butler senior Vincent Mitchell soured the evening for the Hoosiers as he scored two goals in the second half to tie the game.
The results Sunday and Wednesday also meant the Hoosiers have not won for two consecutive games this season.
A win against Rutgers this Sunday would prevent them from extending the winless streak.
Conceding two goals in the game against Butler was something of an anomaly for IU. Apart from the match against Valparaiso, which was the first of the season, the Hoosiers have not conceded two goals against anyone else this season.
IU redshirt junior defender Derek Creviston said after the Butler game the team would review the tapes and put in a better performance against Rutgers on Sunday.
Surrendering a two-goal lead to walk away with a draw is never a good experience, but Yeagley said he believes there were positives to be taken from the game Wednesday night.
“The guys need to realize how well they did tonight (against Butler) ,even though it felt like a loss emotionally,” Yeagley said. “But the positives, I must say, is that I’ve seen a lot of teams lose that game (after surrendering a two goal lead) — a lot of championship teams — and we still found a result.”
IU won last season’s matchup against Rutgers, beating the Scarlet Knights 2-1 in New Jersey.
Both teams go into this year’s match on the back of a winless run with the Scarlet Knights suffering two losses and a draw in their last three games and failing to score in their last two games.
IU’s players are looking to put Wednesday’s result behind them and are fully focused on Sunday’s challenge.
“We look at what we did wrong in this game, learn from it, fix that and come back Sunday ready to go,” Hollinger-Janzen said.
