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(10/09/13 1:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For those of you who still aren’t sure about whether the IU women’s soccer team is for real, you must have been hiding under a rock for the last couple months.The Hoosiers (10-2-1) are not only good, but very good.Key aspects of any team’s success are sharing a bond and fighting through trials. That was the case with this team on Friday night when forward Rebecca Candler found the net off of a missed kick by midfielder Abby Smith in overtime.One of the best things about watching this team play is that you know that it can score — a lot.The Hoosiers have scored 28 goals out of 255 shot attempts while their opponents have netted 12 goals in 115 shot attempts so far this season. Opponents have 53 shot attempts, while IU has 115.That should give you an idea exactly how good this team is.There are some talented teams in the Big Ten conference, but none with the star appeal of the Hoosiers.This Hoosiers team is a serious contender for a Big Ten championship, maybe even a national championship.OK, maybe not a national championship this year, but it wouldn’t shock me one bit to see them in the hunt for a title in the future.It doesn’t matter what your knowledge or experience level is when it comes soccer: you will become a fan of the women’s soccer team after you watch it play.The Hoosiers are leading the Big Ten conference in shots taken this season, continuously finding ways to win. And usually they win in convincing fashion.Maybe it’s the amazing soccer players who agreed to play for IU. Players such as senior forward Lisa Nouanesengsy, who’s a beast on the pitch. With much of the focus on their male counterparts’ national championship run last year, one would think the Hoosiers women’s soccer team would be sidetracked, but no — they’re focused, intense and highly competitive.The Hoosiers’ next contest will be a 6 p.m. start Saturday as the Iowa Hawkeyes come to Bloomington to take on the Hoosiers at Armstrong Stadium.This week’s Minority Report prediction: if the Hoosiers keep the tempo up, they’ll walk over the Hawkeyes and win 3-1. — pdolly@indiana.edu Follow columnist Pat Dolly on Twitter @MinReport_IDS.
(10/02/13 2:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A 2-0 butt-whoopin’. That’s what I want to see out of the reigning National Champion men’s soccer team. IU’s victory over Ohio State Sunday in their Big Ten opener was what Hoosier fans have been waiting for. A slightly rainy afternoon didn’t deter the Hoosiers from coming out focused.So far this season, the Hoosiers failed to produce when needed on the offensive end, so watching them toy around with the Buckeyes was fun.I’m sure I’m not the only person who was starting to worry about the team’s record to start off the season.It was good to see the team out there having fun. It was a back-to-basics style of play, and it showed.One thing is for sure, that dominating performance by the Hoosiers was not just another competitive win. Something lit a fire under the team’s collective butts.It’s a good thing, since those close games ending in a loss for the Hoosiers were getting tough to watch. IU has played in five overtime games. Four of those have ended in losses. This team is so much better than that.There’s no reason not to think the Hoosiers won’t enter tonight’s game in South Bend with a “take no prisoners” mindset as they take on Notre Dame at 7 p.m.Coming out on top in this one will be tough for IU, as Notre Dame is the No. 2 team in the country.It’s a matchup that IU Coach Todd Yeagley recognizes will be a challenge.“We have a real tough matchup (against Notre Dame), but I know our team is looking forward to it,” he said in a video on IUHoosiers.com.However, this Hoosier team is a lot better than its record indicates. Its 4-4-1 record could just as easily be a record of 6-2-1 after several losses in the final minutes of games.Always a threat, senior midfielders Jacob Bushue, A.J. Corrado and Nikita Kotlov should get involved early.Bushue is a physical player who can easily rattle opponents. That type of play will prove helpful against Notre Dame.Expect junior defender Patrick Doody to influence the outcome of this game in a positive way. There is no doubt that he will be looking to score his second career goal against that swarming Fighting Irish defense. This game will tell us everything we need to know about IU men’s soccer this season. This game will show the IU faithful that this team is a National Champion for a reason. That fire under the butts of the team will continue. I almost feel bad for the Irish — almost. My prediction: After a slow start on the road, the Hoosiers will enter the second half pumped and walk away with a 2-1 win.— pdolly@indiana.edu Follow columnist Pat Dolly on Twitter @MinReport_IDS.
(09/25/13 3:14am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After going to one IU field hockey game, I quickly realized it wasn’t for me.Let me preface by saying the team does have a decent record so far this year, going undefeated after losing the first two games of the season at Duke 4-0 and at Drexel 2-0. The Hoosiers now sit at a record of 5-2, stringing together five straight wins after the 0-2 start. It’s not that the team isn’t talented, because it is. It’s not that the team doesn’t play hard, because it does. The problem is that going to an IU field hockey game, in my experience, is just not entertaining. I am pretty sure I dozed off at least three times. Not to count one that ended with drooling. That’s not a good sign in relation to entertaining the fans.On paper it would appear that a five-game winning streak in which the Hoosier field hockey team only allowed two goals would be a good thing, but dig further. The numbers don’t seem nearly as impressive.During that trip to North Carolina where the Hoosiers fell to 0-2 to start the season, IU failed to produce any offensive success, getting skunked in both the game against Duke and Drexel. Keep in mind that both teams were nationally ranked at the time, with Drexel ranked No. 17 and Duke then ranked No. 10 in the nation. Since then, that five-game winning streak came against a series of teams with a combined record of 9-27, including the Robert Morris Colonials who are the only team above .500 that the Hoosiers have beaten all season. The Colonials sit at a record of 5-3.It was tough to watch. So tough, in fact, that it was difficult to do the research needed to put together this column.That experience was not something I was happy to relive. Have you ever heard the saying, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong”?That was exactly what it was like to watch the Hoosiers play against Ohio on Saturday. Never before have I watched field hockey and felt like something didn’t belong. Field hockey is already one of those sports that can easily be forgotten due to its combination of field sports, such as soccer and football, with a game like hockey. Maybe that’s what didn’t belong. Are we playing a field event, or are we playing hockey?It was quite confusing.It reminded me of youth sports.Often times in the younger branch of youth sports, the players participate in a thing called “bunching,” which is where a cluster of players from both teams “bunch” around one another in an attempt to make a play. Watching this team was just like that. It was like watching a lot of Division-I athletes bunching like children.There is no other way to describe the experience except to simply quote a line from a popular 1990s television show, “In Living Color.” Channeling my inner “Men on Film,” I can only express my experience with the two simple words that made that skit one of the most viewed and repeated in the show’s history.How did I feel about watching IU field hockey? “Hated it.”No worries, though. The Hoosiers luck should continue Friday when they take on the 4-4 Miami (Ohio) RedHawks. If you go out to the game on Friday, bring a book and expect to watch the Hoosiers walk all over the .500 RedHawks.— pdolly@indiana.edu Follow columnist Pat Dolly on Twitter @MinReport_IDS.
(09/18/13 3:32am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>At times it wasn’t pretty, but somehow the IU volleyball team went undefeated in three games this weekend, winning the Hoosier Classic tournament to improve to 8-1 on the year.Throughout the entire weekend, the team kept doing what it needed to do to win.That’s what makes this team great.Even when it looks like it may be down, it still pulls through and finds a way to get the victory.That’s why this team will continue to find success this season.The first challenge of the weekend came Friday night when the Hoosiers went head-to-head with the University of Wyoming. Oftentimes in sports it is said the game is not as one-sided as the score sometimes indicates. That seemed to be the case Friday as the Hoosiers seemed to be a step behind — and that translated to the scoreboard — as the Hoosiers spent a good portion of the evening fighting from behind.Let’s be clear, it was not for lack of effort. The Cowgirls were just all over the place. They were fast. Very fast.Good thing the crowd was into the game because it seemed at times like the Hoosiers bit off more than they could chew.It was one of those games where fans look up at the score, then look a few moments later, and their team is down by four or five scores. Good thing some Hoosiers didn’t like that idea very much.The Hoosiers, led by sophomore outside hitter Amelia Anderson, who set a career mark with 21 kills on the evening, battled all night and eventually put the Cowgirls away 3-1.The Hoosiers’ next challenge came a day later as they faced Tennessee State University, who spent Friday evening scouting both the Hoosiers and Cowgirls, who they would play on Saturday.Someone must have delivered a killer motivational pregame speech before the Hoosiers’ match against Tennessee State Saturday because the Hoosiers were not in a playful mood as the offense came out on fire. The defense wasn’t too shabby either, defeating the Tigers 3-1.With the win, the Hoosiers moved on to the championship round of the Hoosier Classic, facing off against the University of Alabama at Birmingham team that entered the final round of the Hoosier Classic with a record of 9-2 after disposing of Tennessee State and Wyoming earlier in the weekend.The championship round was more like a scrimmage for the Hoosiers. The outcome was never really in question during the contest as the Hoosiers swept the Blazers 3-0 to claim the classic championship.With the win, the Hoosiers remain unbeaten at home this season, improving to a record of 6-0 at University Gym.That match was sad to watch. Originally it made me wonder whether UAB deserved to be a Division I team, but it soon became obvious that the Hoosiers just have game.A far cry from the back and forth battle with Wyoming on Friday night, but the end result was the same as it has been throughout the season for the Hoosier volleyball team — another win.The Hoosiers have a challenge in front of them as they first take on a scrappy Duke team Friday followed by a huge test against the No. 18 North Carolina Saturday.I predict the Hoosiers will make short work of the Blue Devils, 3-1, but will ultimately fall to the No. 18 Tar Heels after a lackluster effort for their second loss of the season.— pdolly@indiana.eduFollow columnist Pat Dolly on Twitter @MinReport_IDS.
(09/11/13 3:14am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The whole point of the Minority Report is to begin a dialogue about the other Hoosier sports teams on campus that seem to have for some reason gotten lost in the minds of Hoosier fans.There is no need for me to talk about how good this team is. All you need to do is take a look at their record to find that out. For volleyball, things look good with a 5-1 record overall on the young season, 3-0 at home and a record of 2-1 on neutral locations. I was having a conversation with a student in the Indiana Memorial Union about how I felt that women’s sports need to start drawing the types of crowds that men’s sports draw. I told him not to sleep on the IU volleyball team. He said he wasn’t impressed. “Have you even gone to a game?” I asked. “Never,” he said. Did I already mention that this team is 5-1 this season?During a similar conversation with another individual about the IU volleyball team, I threw out that record.“Yeah, but who have they played?” he said.Every game, there has to be a decision on the outcome made in terms of wins, losses or ties, and the Hoosier volleyball team has lost only once.That one, single, lonely loss came at the hands of the College of Charleston, a team that happens to be undefeated so far this season.The Hoosiers blanked both South Carolina State, 3-0, on Friday and Coastal Carolina on Saturday.The team went to South Carolina and skunked two different South Carolina teams before falling to College of Charleston, 3-1.Not to mention that loss was in the championship round of the Hampton Inn College of Charleston Invitational.Show them some love, people.Imagine Hoosier Nation packing University Gym. You think it gets loud at a Hoosier basketball game, but the acoustics in University Gym would not be able to contain the amount of noise fans would make. These girls are winning. We would do well to remember that. With stats like that, there is no guessing that win, lose, or tie, this next game against Wyoming will be a good one.The Wyoming volleyball team also happens to be 6-1, so it won’t be a cakewalk. Speaking of the Hoosiers’ next volleyball game, I will issue a simple call out using a line from one of my favorite movies of all time, Half Baked. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna do what you all think I’m gonna do which is freak out, man. All I wanna know is who’s coming with me, man?”Who will be there when the IU volleyball team goes head-to-head with Wyoming at 7 p.m. Friday in Bloomington?Oh, you have plans to go out to a bar or party that night? No bar in Bloomington jumps off that early, so knock that off.Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, Fred Glass has been strongly pushing this ‘24 sports, one team’ creed lately. Make him proud.Like all the other non-revenue generated sports on campus, I want to remove volleyball from the Minority Report, and put it where it deserves to be. While 24 sports, one team is IU’s creed, it is so much more than that. It means Hoosier Nation supports its teams when they win and when they lose. It means they hold it down and represent for their teams, and the best way to do that is to show up to a game, right?Talk to your friends, hit up the next volleyball game. Let’s move volleyball from the Minority Report to the front page of the IDS sports section. — pdolly@indiana.eduFollow Hoosier sports columnist Patrick Dolly on Twitter @MinReport_IDS.