No. 7 Indiana men\u2019s soccer had a game plan to follow \u2014 and the execution was nearly perfect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Hoosiers faced one of their toughest opponents yet with No. 14 Oregon State University coming to Bloomington for the second and final game of the adidas\/IU Credit Union Classic. Unlike some of its other games this season, Indiana had tape to run through.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What head coach Todd Yeagley and his staff found was the Beavers were a possession team \u2014 a side that bullied their opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Indiana didn\u2019t plan on doing that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Hoosiers completely flipped the script,\u00a0dominating the first half and securing a 2-0 win Sunday at Bill Armstrong Stadium in Bloomington.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have a little more, but that\u2019s really good,\u201d Yeagley said postgame about the first 45 minutes. \u201cSo, what I\u2019ve seen of this team in training, and, you know, whether it\u2019s exhibition \u2014 that\u2019s the \u2018A\u2019 range that we want to be at.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Sunday, the Hoosiers were frenetic from the opening whistle, pressing the possession-oriented Beavers and causing havoc.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The chances immediately arrived, with junior forward Collins Oduro<\/a> winning a ball from Oregon State\u2019s back line in the first minute and producing a cross that had to be cleared for a corner kick. Barely over 10 minutes later, senior forward Palmer Ault<\/a> chested a ball from outside the box and rifled the half-volley just over the crossbar.\u00a0<\/p>\n All the while, the Hoosiers limited the Beavers\u2019 time with the ball by maximizing their own possession. With that came chances, which kept pressure on Oregon State, although Indiana failed to convert any of them from open play.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cReally didn\u2019t give them a whole lot,\u201d Ault said. \u201cAnd it was only 1-0, we could have had a few more to go into the half, but ultimately, a great performance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The elusive goal eventually came in the 17th minute. Ault, who already had two goals and an assist entering Sunday, tucked away a penalty for the Hoosiers following a Beavers hand ball, marking the first time Indiana had led in the first half this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the one-goal advantage, Indiana didn\u2019t stay complacent \u2014 and the opportunities kept coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n A sequence of three exquisite chances presented an opportunity for the Hoosiers to double their lead, but the score stayed 1-0.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sophomore forward Michael Nesci, fresh off his first goal of the season against Green Bay on Thursday, unleashed a rocket from outside the box with his non-dominant left foot. Sophomore goalkeeper John Nicolson ultimately parried the chance away, but Indiana stayed on the attack with another opportunity through junior left back Alex Barger just 26 seconds later, with his deflected effort nearly finding the bottom corner of the net.\u00a0<\/p>\n The ensuing corner produced another chance for Indiana, as Barger\u2019s looping ball found Easton Bogard\u2019s head. The sophomore forward attempted to play a header back into the middle of the box, but Nicolson batted the ball away, and redshirt junior defender Breckin Minzey\u2019s shot on the rebound sailed over the bar.\u00a0<\/p>\n Missed chances might have cost Indiana in any other game. But stout defending and\u00a0purposeful possession kept the Beavers at an arm’s length from the Hoosiers for most of the match, with the Cream and Crimson entering the halftime break up 1-0 while holding a 12-1 advantage in shots.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe did everything; they couldn\u2019t do a thing,\u201d Yeagley said. \u201cI thought it could have been multiple goals in that first half.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The next goal struck only 54 seconds\u00a0into the second half, as Ault tucked home a volley from a Nesci cross, giving Indiana a two-goal lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n From that point on, the momentum flipped. Indiana stayed firm, not allowing a goal for the remainder of the match, but Oregon State led 16-1 in shots, forcing four key saves from graduate student goalkeeper Holden Brown.\u00a0<\/p>\n Indiana’s loss of control wasn\u2019t due to poor play, as Yeagley acknowledged, but rather an uptick in Oregon State\u2019s quality \u2014 a side Yeagley believes could make a deep run in the tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe were kind of in between, and that\u2019s where you don\u2019t want to be against a team that has a couple of special guys,\u201d Yeagley said. \u201cSo, we kind of started to pull the line back a little, but then we went into a late game shape just to kind of kill space, and you\u2019re gonna absorb a little bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In the end, Indiana absorbed all of Oregon State\u2019s pressure, securing the dominant 2-0 win over a top 15 opponent. With two more non-conference matches left before Big Ten play, including a road bout against the University of Notre Dame, the Hoosiers sit in a good spot at 3-0-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yeagley is pleased with his side\u2019s performances so far, despite the first 20 minutes against San Francisco which he found to be \u201caverage,\u201d and the end goal of trophies and success is still very much in sight.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the players also understand they aren\u2019t there yet \u2014 and more work still needs to be done.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been far from perfect,\u201d Ault said, \u201cbut at the end of the day, we\u2019re all about getting results, and that\u2019s we\u2019ve done so far.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow reporters Elakai Anela (elakai_anela<\/a> and eanela@iu.edu<\/a>) and Mateo Fuentes-Rohwer (@mateo_frohwer<\/a> and matfuent@iu.edu<\/a>) for updates throughout the Indiana men’s soccer season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 7 Indiana men\u2019s soccer had a game plan to follow \u2014 and the execution was nearly perfect.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-112203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}