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(11/28/10 8:56pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>AKRON, Ohio — It was a glimpse of IU soccer past, an IU soccer of excellence. An IU soccer that wouldn’t settle for early exits from the season-ending tournament. It was a team a fan could believe to win, even if the opponent was the No. 3 seed.But in reality, it was merely a glimpse at those seven five-pointed stars.At the end of the 90 minutes in Akron, Ohio on Sunday, the Hoosiers lost 2-1 to the Zips, ending first-year coach Todd Yeagley’s and IU’s postseason run in the third round of the NCAA Tournament. The loss was their second to Akron in many years.It was also a glimpse of games this season past.Little slip-ups here and there. Soft goals. A small letdown of IU’s guard. They happened against Butler, Penn State and even Northwestern in IU’s 2010 campaign. In every postgame talk, they were said to be worked on and changed. They wouldn’t appear in the postseason.But they did.“They’re a very solid team all-around, offensively and defensively, and they stuck to their game plan,” junior forward Will Bruin said.After 52 minutes of sophomore goalkeeper Luis Soffner’s spectacular saves — by far some of his best grabs of the season — the IU defense could hold on no longer. The first Akron goal was shot off a quick give-and-go from midfielder Michael Nanchoff with an assist by forward Darren Mattocks.Just more than a minute later, Mattocks didn’t bother to knock on the Hoosiers’ door, stealing a backwards pass from Soffner. The 6-foot-4-inch frame of Soffner just couldn’t stretch the extra inches to block the kick. Mattocks stuffed Akron’s last goal into the bottom right of the net.“Luis was in a lot of good spots,” Yeagley said. “His air presence, the corners that they had, he plucked them out. He had a very solid game. Unfortunately, one play when you’re a back or a goalkeeper can often be what everyone remembers.”It wasn’t that the 10-8-2 Hoosiers couldn’t keep up with the 20-1-1 Zips. They just couldn’t keep up for as long. While play in the first half looked like neither team was willing to give up an inch either way on the field, the second half was mainly played with IU defending its goal.“You have your moments in soccer where you’re controlling the game, and it switches and the other team is controlling the game,” senior midfielder Andy Adlard said. “It’s how well you recover from those moments. And they had a good spell for 12 to 15 minutes where they got a couple of goals. We were a bit unorganized, but if we could have weathered that storm a little better, might have been a different game.”Akron coach Caleb Porter, a former IU player and assistant coach, took what he learned from Jerry Yeagley and applied it to his program.Now, it’s Todd Yeagley’s turn.This loss could be the first step to bringing back IU soccer to what it once was.“It looked like IU soccer of the past and their mentality,” Porter said. “I know their future is bright with Todd at the helm. I know a lot of alums are very happy with the direction of the program.”
(11/28/10 8:31pm)
NCAA Tournament - Third Round - Men's Soccer - Indiana vs. Akron
(11/26/10 4:53pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Before IU coach Todd Yeagley led the Hoosiers and Akron coach Caleb Porter led the Zips, they assisted on the sidelines at Indiana.Before they assisted together, they played together on Jerry Yeagley Field, wearing a three-star IU soccer logo. While they played together, they lived together, when Yeagley was a senior and Porter was a redshirt freshman.Now the former assistant coaches, the former teammates and the former roommates will meet for the first time in the postseason when IU travels to Akron for a 4 p.m. Sunday third-round NCAA Tournament game.“We go back a ways,” Yeagley said, laughing, when talking about Porter.In Ohio, the two men will set aside all of their formers. For 90 minutes, Yeagley will only be the head of a team that is trying to get to its first quarterfinal match since 2008."As you start to get older you start to see guys you had some pretty good relationships with on other sidelines,” Yeagley said. "It’s part of the game. Caleb and I get along real well and we’ll always have that relationship."While Yeagley and his No. 14-seeded Hoosiers are, for now, only looking as far as the Elite Eight, the No. 3-seeded Zips have been a tournament favorite with - what some people claim - a paved road to the Final Four.Senior Daniel Kelly attributes Akron’s high seed and their 19-1-1 record to an intense mentality Porter brings to the program that runs through the entire team, as well as having a solid roster.“Overall if you look on paper, their back four plus their defensive mid, they’re all on the U-20 national team,” Kelly said. “So give them credit there and overall, they just play soccer.”Since Kelly and his senior teammates joined this IU squad, the team has gone 0-1-1 against the Zips, with no match against them during their freshman year. As a head coach, Yeagley only faced Porter in a preseason match during the one year Yeagley spent as head coach at Wisconsin.IU does have a 6-2-1 record in Sunday matches this season, but what the team has done doesn’t matter to Yeagley."All we’re looking at is a chance to play in the final eight, which very few players get that opportunity in their career over a four-year span,” Yeagley said. “There’s a lot of motivation for our players to go in there and leave everything on the field and put our best foot forward.”Last Sunday in Bloomington, IU beat Tulsa, 5-1. While Yeagley was pleased with his team’s performance, he said he knows it is a difficult one to duplicate.“It’s hard to think that you’ll see a score line like last Sunday,” Yeagley said. “We just need to be extremely disciplined and focused for this match to be able to match some of the talent that Akron has.”Yeagley and Porter will take what they learned from the legendary IU soccer coach and will add their own personalities to the mix when they bark commands from the sideline on Sunday.When the 90 minutes are over, one roommate will win and one roommate will end his season.All the formers will remain and new titles will be added to the relationship, but one thing will always remain."If you were a player here, family is always really big,” Kelly said. “We’re facing an IU family member, so it’s kind of that family rivalry, that brother rivalry."
(11/19/10 5:14am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>They’ve seen it all.They’ve watched the building of a legacy. Thirty-one years later, they saw the retirement of one of the greatest Division I coaches in college soccer. Then, they examined the successor whom IU Athletics Director Fred Glass didn’t think was the right fit. Now, they’re watching the son of the legacy have his shot at rebuilding the storied program of IU men’s soccer.Hoosier soccer fans fell in love with the team, its tradition of excellence and its motto of a soccer family. Except, it’s not just a motto. It’s so much more.Nancy HayworthIU soccer fan Nancy Hayworth has seen those nights that Indiana loses from its own mistakes. In the 31 years she’s been attending games, Hayworth watched the action at all but five home games.But those mistakes are something Hayworth said should be changing with IU coach Todd Yeagley in his first season with the Hoosiers.“You can feel the difference,” Hayworth said. “It’s not the wins and losses. It’s the heart and passion of the game that I haven’t seen for a couple years. I can see it now, and I can feel it. It’s still not quite there, but it’s getting there, and I have faith that it will be again what it once was.”What it once was made Hayworth cry. In 2003, at the halfway point in the season, the men’s soccer team sat at 2-3-4. It was then-coach Jerry Yeagley’s, the man who had brought men’s soccer to Indiana, last year as a coach.“It looked like it was going to be a down year for his last year,“ Hayworth remembered.Then, in a game against Michigan, IU took the Wolverines into overtime and eventually won the game, 2-1. From that point on, the Hoosiers did not lose another game.In the national title game in Columbus, Ohio, Hayworth sat in the bleachers on the cold day that sent many of the fans to watch the game from the restroom where it was warmer.“I just sat there in the stands and I looked at the scoreboard and it said 2-0, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re going to actually do this.’ I started to cry, and I cried through the whole second half of the game,” Hayworth laughed, recounting the story. “All of the national titles are special in a different way, but that one to me, those kids just played with heart. It was one of those almost impossible dreams that wasn’t supposed to happen.”Hayworth has watched the team hoist a national title trophy five times — the first two happened before she was a fan. She remains a fan today because, as she said, IU soccer is a family.“I don’t think that exists in a lot of other sports or even in a lot of other soccer programs,” Hayworth said. “I feel like the other nine months of the year that I’m just hiding. I don’t come out until IU soccer starts.”Chronic HoosierThe hill on the south side of Bill Armstrong Stadium, which now has the press box and thousands of bleacher seats sitting atop it, was once just grass. A 35-year-old fan remembers the days he spent on that hill with his father.That fan is the son of a former IU athlete who everyone calls the Chronic Hoosier, a name he goes by on his blog and Twitter account.Chronic, who was born in Bloomington, began playing soccer when he was 3. His dad wasn’t a soccer player for IU, so coming to Hoosier games was a way for the two of them to bond and learn the game together.“It was as close as you could get,” Chronic said about his seat on the hill. “You got to hear everything. And those grandstands, whenever IU had an attack or an opportunity, people would stamp their feet on the aluminum and it would give this unique sound. The place would just rumble. That was the old school.”The old IU soccer was also one in which fans attended games. They didn’t turn their back on their soccer family, regardless of whether it was 40 degrees on a Wednesday or if Sunday Night Football was on. The stands, which now often have sections that remain empty, were once full. Bill Armstrong Stadium, with a capacity of 6,500, is one that www.goal.com proclaimed as the “second-best place to watch a soccer match in the United States,” and was often full.People used to hang from the trees that used to grow along the St. Paul Catholic Newman Center parking lot just to catch a glimpse of the team.Chronic also said he missed the taunting that fans gave to the opposing goalie.“Whenever IU scored a goal, the whole crowd would cheer ‘Goalie, goalie, goalie, YOU SUCK,’” Chronic said, laughing. “Without fail, the goalie would kind of hang his head.”The 1994 IU graduate also said he missed how often he used to have to buy IU gear. He said it seemed like every time he bought a new IU soccer shirt, another star would be added to the logo, and he’d have to go and buy a new one. Although he didn’t see every National Championship game, he saw a game in each of the seven of the seasons IU won the national title.“Where it is now I think is promising,” Chronic said of the state of the IU team. “Where it’s been. ... you know. You have a coach come in who is following a legend, whose persona is so ingrained in the program, they are seemingly inseparable. The guy that follows that man always falls on his face.”Yet Chronic said in the case of the former IU coach, Mike Freitag didn’t really fall on his face, but his success came early in his tenure.“He was a phenomenal coach,” Chronic said. “It just didn’t work out because under what IU soccer knows, the expectation wasn’t met under his watch. Regardless, Mike Freitag has probably forgotten more about college soccer than most Division I coaches have ever known.“However, I wouldn’t be surprised if we brought home another star in the next five years,” Chronic said about the program’s new lead with legendary coach Jerry Yeagley’s son, Todd Yeagley. “More often than not, most nights Indiana is the only team that is going to beat itself.”Charles TeepleCharles Teeple started his career as a sports writer, so he was never able to hibernate from sports. Although he graduated with a B.A. in journalism in 1950, Teeple never wrote about IU men’s soccer. He switched careers, from newspaper to corporate, in 1960 before the birth of IU soccer.When he retired 18 years ago from Humana as the man in charge of investor relations, Teeple decided he needed a hobby.Never had Teeple played soccer, but he decided his hobby would be his alma mater’s soccer team.In his 18 years of Hoosier fandom, Teeple and his wife, Nancy have traveled from Bloomington to as far as Seattle. They witnessed the last five national titles and went to 89 consecutive soccer games in the 1990s. The Teeples’ love of IU Athletics doesn’t stop at soccer. During the 2007-08 school year, Teeple attended 82 games, with 32 of them at the baseball complex alone. But in his retirement, Teeple said soccer remains his primary interest.“This is the sport at Indiana that’s capable of producing national champions,” Teeple said. “They have and they continue to do so.”Why cheer on IU soccer?Fans have grown up knowing that Indiana soccer, like Indiana basketball, is a storied program. They were able to talk a little smack and boast their new national banner when they were young, but Chronic believes it’s something they really need to experience.“When I was young, you got to go to school the next day and brag to your friends, and that was for a whole year,” Chronic said. “Because your team won, that meant that whole year you owned those Purdue bitches. We still do for that matter because they don’t have anything to boast.“With that being said, it was one of those things that in hindsight you take for it for granted — the excellence. At IU, excellence is the norm. That’s totally an unreal standpoint, but that’s the stance that’s been established at IU. That’s the expectation.”So for now, the IU soccer family will continue to cheer on the team in hopes that the 24th straight NCAA Tournament appearance will result in an eighth star being added to the logo. They wait because they have an expectation that they know can be reached. They wait because they know the strength of their family members. They wait because they know that with time, their family will kick its way back to glory.
(11/18/10 4:28am)
Eric Alexander only left the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington half a year ago. Now, Alexander along with former Hoosier Drew Moor, who hepled IU win back-to-back national championships, will match up against each other in the Major League Soccer Cup Final on Sunday.
(11/12/10 4:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A Big Ten regular season title was just the first thing on the to-do list for IU men’s soccer.Now that is scratched off the list, IU moves on to its next task.A Big Ten Tournament title — a title IU hasn’t won since 2006, a title that no member of the team has in his IU Athletics player biography — is the end goal for the Hoosiers during this weekend’s trip to State College, Pa.. “Coming off the Big Ten regular season with a title, we’re just wanting to add another one,” freshman midfielder Harrison Petts said. “We’ll see if we can pull the double.”It would not only mean a double title but also a double victory against Penn State in 2010.Earlier this season, the Hoosiers beat the Nittany Lions in a 3-2 comeback victory. “It’s putting together a full 90 minutes,” junior forward Alec Purdie said. “We can’t rely on scoring three goals in a half-an-hour span. You have to come out and put those 90 minutes together, and you can beat anyone.” However, Penn State had a comeback victory, compiling three second-half goals to beat Northwestern 3-1 on Thursday.Junior forward Will Bruin scored one goal in that game. Bruin has 15 total goals on the season, but he and the rest of the Hoosier squad were stifled in their final game of the season Sunday with a 1-0 loss to conference rival Ohio State. “We’re certainly not going to dwell on it,” Purdie said of the loss to the Buckeyes. “It was a slow game, but we showed what we can do. We’ll build from that.”If the Hoosiers do beat the Nittany Lions in the second round — they were given a bye since they are the No. 1 seed — IU will either play No. 3 seed Michigan or No. 7 seed Wisconsin. Wisconsin already is causing a stir in the tournament, uprooting No. 2 seed Ohio State on Thursday.“We know on any given day we can play with anybody in the country,” Petts said. “We just have to know that we can come out and play our game.”With a fresh slate for the postseason, the team looks to add another title to its resume.However, there’s still one more title left on the list, but that one has a little more time before it can get marked off.“Winning titles is important,” Purdie said. “That’s what we come here for.”
(11/09/10 4:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Whether the team is an IU sport, an intramural or a club team, athletes around campus seem to agree — it’s nice to come home to people who understand their situation best.A house on Fourth and Grant streets is the home to senior Kelly Shank, two of her rugby teammates and a former rugby teammate who is now on the rowing team. Shank and her roommates moved into the house after an old rugby teammate graduated. Since winter commencement is only a couple months from now for Shank and her roommates, they plan on passing the house on to their teammates.“They know we’re graduating, so the younger girls on the team ask us a lot of questions about the house,” Shank said. “It’s a great location. When I’m in Bloomington, I hardly ever drive. I can get to like every restaurant and all the bars are within walking distance.”Location isn’t the only important element to Shank’s shack. Team unity away from the field can be built stronger by a team home.“It’s important to have a team house where everyone can go,” Shank said. “Because rugby is such a big part of all of our lives, it’s nice to have people that live with you kind of understand that and know kind of what’s going on and why it’s so important. Before they’re my roommates, they’re two of my best friends, so better friends in the house translates to better teammates on the field.”Senior AJ Hollingsworth, a rugby player for the men’s club team — the IU Mudsharks, lives with four of his Mudshark teammates in a house on First and Washington streets.Although the club rugby team has been around since 1962, the house hasn’t been passed down through the generations, but Hollingsworth said he is looking at starting the tradition.“After we’re done, we’re definitely trying to keep it within the team,” he said. “It’s a nice house. It just got redone probably two years ago. It’s a good party house, too. But we’re also only a five minute walk away from Kirkwood.”Being a member in a rugby house that some of the team lives in is not always, well, full of parties.“It definitely gets dirty,” Hollingsworth said about five rugby players living in one house. “It’s a pain. We’ve had parties in the past. We try to make the rookies clean it up the day after but that doesn’t always go over so well.“We also have to pay for trash stickers and usually our trash gets picked up real early on Monday morning, and we forget to put it out the night before so we usually have a lot of trash built up.”While the IU club tennis team does not have a house that they pass on, junior Stephen Vogl, a member of the team, lives with his teammates in a flat on Third and Lincoln streets, near the firehouse. Their location gave Vogl and his three tennis teammates the nickname for their flat: the firehouse.“The other reason is because we have no AC, so in the summer it’s like 100 degrees in there,” Vogl said.Vogl and his teammates, who voluntarily practice Monday through Friday and play tournaments on the weekend during the summer months, said they are often ready to get out of the heat in the summer. With no air conditioning, Vogl said the firehouse isn’t always the best thing to come home to in August.“It’s not easy, but we have so many fans. It’s not that bad,” Vogl said.Vogl and his teammates are in their second year of living at the firehouse. He said he and his roommates will all live in the firehouse until they graduate, then they plan on passing it on to a freshman teammate.“We just want to try and keep it a tennis house as long as possible,” Vogl said. “It’s just nice for the tennis guys to have a house where they can be with their teammates at all times and have their own close-knit group.”
(11/05/10 3:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A shot off the foot of Andy Adlard goes in for a score, and the 5-foot-9-inch senior runs toward the sideline in celebration.Up to this point, it’s a typical goal celebration. But Adlard isn’t a typical goal celebrator.The run is followed by a cartwheel that turns into a back tuck. Hoosier fans in the stands clap louder. Photographers hold their shutters longer, capturing a goal celebration that is as close to the college version of a Brandi Chastain-goal celebration as there will ever be.But Adlard doesn’t just do a back flip, he gets air to the point that his upside down head is level with 5-foot-11-inch Chris Estridge’s shoulders.“Wanna know the cool thing?” Adlard said, smiling. “I can get higher.” ***When Adlard was 5 years old, he loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and he loved Michelangelo.“I really liked what he could do with his yo-yo,” he said. “I just thought it was cool. I was pretty good with yo-yo. I had the book and everything.”But Michelangelo’s use of a yo-yo as a weapon isn’t what worried Stephen and Shelly Adlard. His parents believed the TMNT are what inspired their son to flip from the top bunk of his bed into a bean bag chair on his bedroom floor.“I even remember watching them and doing round offs and front flips off my coffee table into a bean bag,” Adlard said. “I was stupid as a kid, and I didn’t have much fear.”His parents were scared their son was going to hurt himself. They wanted him to channel his talent into something, so they placed him in gymnastics.“The first day I went to gymnastics they basically pushed me flat into the splits, and it was really painful,” Adlard said. “My mom always says I liked everything else but not the splits. ...I cried because I didn’t want to go back and do the splits.”But Adlard returned on the second day, and for the next seven years he practiced soccer and gymnastics.He practiced at M&M’s Gymnastics in New Berlin, Wis., three days a week for three hours at a time. Adlard admitted he was pretty good, but he only got better. He competed against the Hamm brothers, who participated in the 2004 Athens Olympics for Team USA.“At 7, he was the youngest boy to do a round-off back handspring where he took gymnastics,” his mother said.Adlard made it to state when he was 13, winning the pommel horse. He placed third overall. He was on to regionals, and then he was the alternate for nationals.Soccer was beginning to take up too much time, though, and after Adlard peeled off the high bar trying to do a dismount that caused him to fall on his neck, he decided to hang up his leo for good.Adlard returned to his gym once a week to train with his coach in a conditioning program they called “soccernastics,” which combined the best of Adlard’s two worlds. But he never competed again.“When I landed on my neck, my chin went into my chest, and there was a big bruise on my chest for a few days,” Adlard said. “I definitely miss it. Some days I get the urge to just go do some flips.”***Nearing the end of his IU soccer career, Adlard has only done two flips this season, one during the second game of the season against UCLA and one for a winning goal in a game at Massachusetts.Hoosier fans “oh” and “ah” when Adlard goes up for his flips, but his extreme goal celebration isn’t just a Hoosier tradition. When his Brookfield East High School team went 21-1-3, Adlard occasionally flipped after he scored.Chellsie Memmel, a 2005 World Champion gymnast who trained with Adlard and who he refers to as “a sister,” remembers watching her friend celebrate after a goal. “He’d do a flip and throw in a front handspring,” Memmel said. “To me, it was just Andy. I knew he could do it.”While Adlard and Memmel no longer travel to competitions together, they stayed close. Memmel said she believes although Adlard chose soccer, he could have been great in gymnastics.“He definitely had potential, but it’s hard to be great in any sport and do another one at the same time,” Memmel said. “He had no fear in the gym. He’s an athlete. I’ve never really seen him be bad at anything that he’s tried that has to do with athletics.”***Not all of Adlard’s celebrations are back flips. While he said some mornings he wakes up and thinks if he scores a goal, he’ll do a flip, a majority of his celebrations involve a run to the sidelines, two clenched fists pumped in triumph, a leap in the air or a hug from a teammate. “It’s still if I’m feeling it at that time,” Adlard said. “It depends on how the game’s going too.”Gymnastics has helped Adlard’s perception on the field in other ways. When jumping for a header, Adlard said gymnastics helps him know where his body is and how to control it to land.“It definitely gave me a lot of my agility and my quickness — my balance,” he said. “It’s helped prevent a lot of injuries, I think.”And although flipping through the air sounds like a way to cause an injury, Adlard said, “It’s natural. It’s second nature.”While he said on a soccer field he could get as high as 6 1/2 feet in the air, he keeps his air time to a minimum.“I just chose not to because then I might do something stupid or land wrong,” Adlard said. “It’s just momentum.”While Adlard’s mom said she doesn’t get nervous anymore watching her son flip, there is someone on the sidelines who gets a little worried when he sees the No. 10 jersey upside down.“We don’t need to make that an every goal thing,” IU coach Todd Yeagley said. “I certainly love to see him do it because he just had a goal, but he just needs to make sure nothing happens on his flips. He’s got a lot of passion, and it’s just one of his ways of showing his emotion. We just don’t want him to get hurt doing one of his after-goal celebrations. Maybe he’ll tame it down after the next one, but it’s all fun because he has a good time with it.”At a soccer camp, Adlard was asked to show off his skills. He had to tuck a soccer ball between his legs and do a standing back tuck.“He’s always been kind of the daredevil type person that will try about anything,” his mother said.As Adlard’s career as a Hoosier comes to a close, he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be able to do flips on the field. That all depends on a Major League Soccer draft that comes in the spring.But whether it’s on the field or at the gym, Adlard said he will keep soccer and gymnastics in his life for as long as he physically can.“If I’m not playing or I end up having to get a real job, I’ll probably just mess around and go to the gym once and a while and keep the flips going,” he said. “I’d like to keep both as long as possible so it’s how my career turns out, but I haven’t really thought about that.”
(11/01/10 6:40pm)
Junior forward Will Bruin:
(11/01/10 4:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sunday evening was different.Two other times this season, IU won 3-2. One of those times, IU rallied from behind for a comeback.When IU played Northwestern on Sunday to try to clinch the Big Ten regular season title, the team came across some of the same mistakes it made in previous games.But Sunday evening was different.The members of the Cage have blown vuvuzelas. They’ve cheered on their team, called names at the opponents and debated with the referees.But Sunday evening was different.Go show those students how much they mean to you, IU coach Todd Yeagley told his team.The players ran toward the Cage, donning their gray shirts and hats, emblazoned with the words “Big Ten Champions.”The team and the Cage cheered as one.“We had our backs against the wall, (trailing) 2-0 with a chance to win the Big Ten, and we rose to the occasion, and we took it to them 3-2 the second half,” junior forward Will Bruin said.A first-half Northwestern goal and another Wildcat score 17 seconds into the second half seemed like a knockout for the Hoosiers. But Bruin came to IU’s rescue once again, scoring on a cross from senior midfielder Andy Adlard. Nine minutes later, he received a forward pass from junior forward Alec Purdie. He charged toward the goal, and when it looked as if it was too late to score, he tacked on his second goal of the game. IU celebrated a 3-2 victory after sophomore midfielder Joe Tolen scored his second career goal in the 80th minute.But Sunday was different. Before the start of the game, teammate and fellow goalkeeper sophomore Luis Soffner gave junior goalkeeper Nate Mitchell tips on how to deal with the sun in a 5 p.m. game.“He said, ‘You really got to be careful that last 20 minutes of the first half on (the east) end because the sun’s below your visor,’” Mitchell said.At the start of the game, Mitchell had spent 135 minutes in goal in 2010 compared to Soffner’s 1,271 minutes.“The biggest thing that the coaches have talked about is that somebody’s got to be ready to play, whether it’s Luis or myself or Taylor or Bristol,” Mitchell said. “Maybe I don’t have a lot of minutes on the field, but I work hard in practice every day to make sure if I do have to go in, I’m ready to play and get a result for our team.”In the second start of his career, Mitchell got the result. He played the full 90 minutes, diving for six saves. At the end of the game, Soffner embraced Mitchell in a bear hug.“Those two are good friends, and they help each other,” Yeagley said. “It’s a special relationship with those two. They really cheer for each other. They know the decision is in the staff, and they embrace it and say, ‘You know what, if it’s your night, go at it.’”There are game-winning celebrations. But Sunday was a title-winning celebration. All 30 players celebrated the 14th Big Ten title in program history, a title IU hasn’t won since 2007.“We’re going to ride this,” Yeagley said. “This is the time of year when you need to have a bounce in your step, and we need it.”“We’re going to enjoy this, and we’re going to get back to work. They’re going to want to work. We’ve got more to do.”It was the first title under a new era. Bruin screamed this title wouldn’t be the only one of the season.“We’ve got one more coming,” Bruin said, smiling.
(10/31/10 8:38pm)
Northwestern 8-5-2 (2-1-1 Big Ten) vs. No. 25 IU 8-5-2 (3-0-1 Big Ten)
(10/29/10 4:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Almost four seasons of 84 games, which amounted to 47 wins, 29 losses and 11 ties have taken seniors Andy Adlard, Daniel Kelly and Rich Balchan through their IU soccer careers.These careers included a Big Ten title their freshman year, the joining of fellow senior Cameron Jordan — who was redshirted — and a trip to the NCAA quarterfinals their sophomore year, a firing their junior year and a fresh start with a familiar last name their senior year.The four IU seniors will take the field Sunday at 5 p.m. for the final regular season home game of their careers. No. 25 IU (8-5-2, 3-0-1) matches up against unranked Northwestern. The Hoosiers are 2-3-2 against unranked foes. This game is more than the last home hurrah. If IU is victorious, it will step away with the 14th Big Ten regular season title in program history, a title the seniors haven’t won since their freshman year.But first, the Hoosiers will have to recover from the 4-1 beating they received from No. 8 Butler.“It’s just like any mistake or anything like that in soccer — you have to forget about it,” Kelly said. “It’s just one of those things you put in the back of your head. You learn from the mistakes, turn them into a positive and go from there.”A weekend turnaround by the Hoosiers after a loss during the week isn’t something new for this IU squad. IU began the first six games of its season with a Friday loss and a Sunday victory. Kelly said it’s those Sunday comebacks his team needs to return to against the Wildcats.“Look at Michigan State,” Kelly said. “Other games — even games we’ve lost and bounced back the next ones — just think positively and figure out what works for us, which is being on the same page and working hard. Go back to IU soccer where you work both sides of the ball.”And go back to IU soccer where the team works on cleaning up its mistakes. Twice this season — against California and Wisconsin — IU was caught thinking there was an offside that was never called that led to a goal and an eventual loss.But first-year IU coach Todd Yeagley said he is handling the mistakes by coaching through them and letting his players learn from them.“You certainly hope with each game where there is a mistake, win or lose, we address it and talk about it,” Yeagley said. “That’s why soccer’s a great sport. Players have to make decisions on the field, and we try to educate them the best.”They are mistakes junior defender Tommy Meyer and his teammates want to make in practice. Meyer said IU has given away a couple games this season on mistakes.“We have to find a way to eliminate that,” Meyer said. “It just comes with practice. You have to do the right things all the time. You can’t make the mistakes in practice because you will make them in games. You have to correct those in practice so when game time comes, there’s no mistakes.”With a day of rest Thursday, IU will spend the weekend gearing up for its big game, but Meyer already knows what the team needs to do.“We have to make sure we don’t have mental lapses during the game like we did (against Butler),” Meyer said. “If we don’t give teams goals, and we find a way to score, that’s all we have to do.”
(10/27/10 11:03pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Five times this season, the IU men’s soccer team has come into the fight as the lower-ranked squad. Four times, IU has walked away with the victory.No. 5 UCL-who? Bye bye No. 11 Creighton. See ya No. 10 Michigan State.But Wednesday, No. 25 IU was just a puppy when No. 8 Butler Bulldogs (14-0-1) beat them 4-1.But the Bulldogs are riding a perfect season for a reason. They played as a team. They took their shots, and they sealed a first goal that was basically set at the feet of their freshman forward en route to a victory.Butler came into Bloomington with the bark of a top-10 team, but in the end, IU bit itself.The visitors were looking for anything — an open shot, a breakaway run or an IU slip-up.In the 15th minute, Butler sent a shot into the box, and sophomore goalkeeper Luis Soffner enclosed his hands around the ball. He went to roll the ball back out, a natural motion Soffner has made multiple times in every game he’s ever played, but instead a fluke roll happened.“I was trying to throw it to Andy (Adlard) on the sidelines,” Soffner said. “Right before I threw it, I saw their guy sprinting from the back right up to Andy, so I just kind of second guessed myself and tried to pull it back in. I was already halfway through the motion, and it just kind of slipped out when I was trying to pull it back. That was unfortunate.”Butler freshman forward Austin Oldham found Soffner’s slipped ball at his feet. He pulled his leg back and released the trigger, scoring Butler’s first goal.Then, almost 30 minutes later, Butler scored again on a long shot from 30 yards out. Soffner looked up and watched the ball sail in the box above him — 2-0 Butler.A Butler celebration 41 seconds later gave the Bulldogs a 3-0 lead at the half.“We just made a few mistakes,” Adlard said. “We were giving them chances that they shouldn’t have got. I don’t want to take too much credit away from them because I thought they played a great game. But we did give them a couple chances that we should have easily turned around or dealt with.”In a game almost five years to the day, IU was down 3-0 at the half against Maryland. It was Oct. 29, 2005, and IU scored the three goals they needed to bring the game to a tie, but neither team was able to score in overtime.Unfortunately, IU wasn’t able to pull off such a feat on Jerry Yeagley Field last night. IU coach Todd Yeagley pulled Soffner from the pitch at the half, and junior Nate Mitchell made two saves in the second half.“Luis was rattled a bit,” Yeagley said. “That first goal bothered him. I think it affected him on his communication, on his presence and certainly on the second goal. We just wanted to have a sharp, focused, ready goalkeeper. “I haven’t lost confidence in Luis, but you have to continue to evaluate and understand we can’t put ourselves in that situation early in the game, and that was a controllable.”Junior forward Will Bruin was able to put away goal No. 13 of the season eight minutes into the second half to give IU its lone goal.“I’ve never seen a team shoot that well personally,” Bruin said. “They hit some bombs from outside, and I look forward to playing them again if we get another chance.”Butler took 13 shots to IU’s 11, but Butler won on the capitalizationof IU mistakes and on the Hoosiers’ frustration and loss of concentration from the defense in the first half.The final seconds had ticked off the clock, and IU stood in a circle around their first-year coach. Yeagley wasn’t yelling or pointing. He was being realistic. It was a non-conference loss. It’s something the team learns from. Sunday’s game against Northwestern, where the team could clinch the Big Ten title, is the game in which they don’t want to be making these mistakes.“Nothing’s lost in this game,” Yeagley said. “We’re a competitive group. We want to win every game, but in the scope of the season, Sunday’s game is the game that we need to focus for and get ready.”
(10/27/10 10:59pm)
No. 8 Butler vs. No. 25 IU
(10/27/10 1:54am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Perfection matches up against the Hoosiers tonight. But midfielder Matt McKain, a freshman who has played in just six matches, said he isn’t scared of facing what is, on paper, a flawless soccer team.Actually, he said he is not really scared of anything on the soccer pitch.So the fact that an undefeated Butler team will face off against IU is not frightening. It’s motivational.“We’re not nervous,” McKain said. “We’ll play anybody. As long as we play straight up, I can see us going toe–to-toe with anybody in the country.”The 13-0-1 Bulldogs will take on the Hoosiers tonight at Bill Armstrong Stadium at 7 p.m. for IU’s last non-conference match of the season. Butler is ranked No. 8 in the nation.“If anything, it excites us and makes us play better,” McKain said. “We’re not intimidated. It just gives us a better opportunity to beat a team in the top 10.”IU (8-4-2, 3-0-1 Big Ten) is currently riding a three-game winning streak against ranked teams, beating then-No. 20 Penn State on Sept. 24, then-No. 11 Creighton on Oct. 9 and then-No. 16 Michigan State on Sunday.A non-conference matchup isn’t a break for them. It’s a big game. Junior midfielder Tyler McCarroll said the team wants to keep the momentum of beating Michigan State on the road and take it into Sunday’s game against Northwestern, where the Hoosiers could clinch the Big Ten regular season title for the first time since 2007.But regardless of IU’s momentum, it’s clear to say Butler’s momentum has been in full swing all season, and McCarroll isn’t discrediting Butler’s ability.“They’re a good team,” McCarroll said. “I wouldn’t say their perfect record is a fluke by any means. It’s a big game. We’re coming off a big win, and it’d be great to get another win to keep that flow going.”That flow is the one the Hoosiers had throughout September when they had their first three-game winning streak of the season. But first-year IU coach Todd Yeagley isn’t preparing a speech about how to keep momentum going. He said his players remember the 2-1 double overtime loss last season.“Oh, I don’t think they’re going to need to hear tons from me,” Yeagley said. “This group is motivated right now, and they know what is there for the taking. We have a hungry, edgy group right now that’s excited about this next phase.”The next phase is champions of the Big Ten, then champions of the Big Ten tournament and then at least an appearance in the NCAA’s College Cup, a place in which the team hasn’t found itself in six years.Big games lay ahead of Yeagley and his team, but for now, they’re focused on erasing perfection.“I know we’re going to work really hard and show our fans what this team can do,” Yeagley said. “This game will prove to be another really good test.”
(10/26/10 2:55am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sophomore goalkeeper Luis Soffner’s Sunday afternoon was pretty relaxing. Six shots came Soffner’s way, and only one was on goal.Soffner stopped those shots, giving his team a shutout victory, the third of the season.A victory Sunday lead to an award Monday, when for the first time in his collegiate career, Soffner was named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week.“I’m honored,” Soffner said. “It’s my first one, so I think it’s a cool accomplishment.”As for the team’s play Sunday and the defense it showed, Soffner contributes that to the No. 16 ranking Michigan State carried.“I hate to say it, but I think our team comes out and plays better against ranked teams,” Soffner said. “I know that’s a bad thing, but yesterday I know we were just really pumped up before the game. We knew that they were a good team, and we were all jacked up for them.”The award is IU’s fourth Big Ten Player of the Week honor. Junior forward Will Bruin has earned the award three times.“That’s a reflection of the team,” coach Todd Yeagley said. “If the team has success, the individual accolades will come, and it’s a shared award. It’s a team award and the guys really understand that.”As for Soffner’s 90 minutes in the box that amounted to one save, Yeagley said he was happy with his young goalkeeper’s abilities on Sunday.“He was very sharp and made the plays he had to make,” Yeagley said. “Otherwise it was not a busy day. Not a busy day is a good thing. It means we’re defending well.”The shutout is Soffner’s second against a ranked team during IU’s 2010 campaign. Soffner has given up 14 goals and has made 31 saves in 13 games this season.“It feels good to be recognized for helping our team win, but I’m not about myself,” Soffner said. “I’m about helping my team win, but it means a lot.”Bruin earns national honorBruin’s 21st birthday brought him goals No. 11 and 12 against the Spartans.Now, Bruin has been named to TopDrawerSoccer.com’s Team of the Week.Bruin is joined by former IU player Ofori Sarkodie’s brother, Kofi, who plays for Akron.
(10/25/10 10:26pm)
Junior forward Will Bruin's 21st birthday brought him goals' No. 11 and 12 against a ranked Michigan State opponent Sunday.
(10/25/10 9:34pm)
Sophomore goalkeeper Luis Soffner earned his first Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week honor today.
(10/22/10 4:14am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It is back to Big Ten play Sunday and back to another chance for the IU men’s soccer team to get back to its recent winning ways. The Hoosiers travel to Michigan State and will try to pull one game closer to a Big Ten regular season title in East Lansing, Mich. at 1 p.m.Coming off Wednesday’s 1-1 tie at Kentucky, conference-leading IU (7-4-2, 2-0-1) attempts to fend off second-place and No. 16 Michigan State and earn some padding in the conference standings as both teams head into the final stretch of the season.“It’s always a tough battle against them,” senior midfielder Rich Balchan said. “They have some pretty quality attacking players, and they’re organized defensively. They’ll get chances. We’ll get chances, so I guess it’s whoever’s more disciplined on the day will get the result.”The chances have been there thus far as the Hoosiers recorded 213 shots in their first 13 games of the year. Although IU has outshot its opponents by 72 shots at this point in the year, the issue of not finishing still remains. “The case in the last couple games has just been not taking our chances when we get them,” senior midfielder Andy Adlard said. “Those are crucial, especially in the Big Ten. Michigan State, they’re a good team and it’s going to be a tough game, but if we can win that, puts us in good position to win the Big Ten, which is a goal we have for the season.”Adlard has four goals in games played away from Bloomington, which is tied with junior forward Will Bruin for the team lead. Adlard’s most recent road goal came Wednesday in Lexington, Ky.A conference road win would add to IU’s impressive road résumé, which is already highlighted by wins against then-No. 11 Creighton, then-No. 20 Penn State and then-No. 22 Drake.“We’re definitely rising to the occasion,” Adlard said. “As long as we can win this game on the road, everything is set up perfectly.”Balchan said the key to finishing out the season strongly is to treat each game the same. Although a win would be tremendous for conference standings, regional record and overall RPI, he said a conference road game with plenty of implications is just another game.“We have five games left in the regular season, so this is the final stretch,” the four-year veteran said. “I wouldn’t say this game is any more important than the rest. We’re trying to stay atop the Big Ten standings. So we’re going to try to go in with energy and get a result, just like every other game.”
(10/21/10 4:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Welcome to the roller-coaster ride that is IU men’s soccer.The season took us for an uphill climb when the team beat then-No. 11 Creighton 11 days ago. But what goes uphill must come down, right?First, they pushed the cart a little higher four days ago, beating the then-Big Ten conference-leading Michigan Wolverines 2-1. But their latest match up against Kentucky, a team they have beaten 21 times out of now 25 meetings, ended in a 1-1 tie on Wednesday in Lexington, Ky.“This season has had its ups and downs, but even though we tied this game, I think the direction we’re going as a team is the right direction,” sophomore midfielder Joe Tolen said. “Especially the last few games the way we’ve been playing. I’m not too worried about it. The way we’ve come along throughout the season has been good, and we’re just working for the rest of the season.”A team that has defeated all four of the ranked opponents it has faced, including a 5-1 whooping of then-No. 5 UCLA, just tied a former 4-6-3 Kentucky squad.However, the team will look to get back on track against Michigan State in four days.It’s not like they didn’t try to take a turn from the normal track during the match; the Hoosiers took 21 shots to Kentucky’s 13. They even had a thrilling corkscrew moment 2:14 into the second half when senior midfielder Andy Adlard drilled his third penalty kick of the season, bringing his total season goals to five. “The second half we really went at them, and we had our chances, (we) just didn’t put them away,” junior midfielder Tyler McCarroll said. “It was good to get the tie, but we weren’t satisfied because we thought we were the better team.”After the squad’s third double overtime of the season, IU is still looking to win in extra minutes. The Hoosiers are now 0-1-2 in extra time.The team that opened with a 5-1 win against UCLA at home has struggled to find any form of regularity with its records standing at 3-2-1 at home and 4-2-1 on the road. But IU coach Todd Yeagley isn’t worried.“Every season is a bit of a ride,” Yeagley said. “Every year has ups and downs. We’ve seen some tough ones and some great ones. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”