Hoosiers gearing up for IUPUI

The opponent may not look as dangerous at first glance, but men's soccer coach Jerry Yeagley insists his Hoosiers (2-2) are up against a tough team at 7:30 p.m. today when IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis comes to Bill Armstrong Stadium.\nThe game is IU's first since last weekend, when the Hoosiers upset Maryland and then-top-ranked Virginia.\nYeagley knows IUPUI's coach, Steve Franklin and said Franklin will have the Jaguars ready to play IU. The Jaguars won their first two games on the road and bring a 2-1 record into the match.\n"We're not looking past this game (today) to the weekend," Yeagley said. "Their coach is a past assistant here. He knows our program inside and out. He knows how Indiana plays. He knows how I think. And he'll have his team ready.\n"Steve's teams are extremely well prepared. He gets the most out of every player and out of his team. If we're looking past them and we have any kind of letdown, we could be in for a real shocker. And that's what we're trying to avoid."\nThe Hoosiers should be able to avoid a letdown if they continue to improve their play.\nAfter playing poorly against Portland in their season opener, they outplayed UCLA for an entire half and then won two come-from-behind victories this past weekend.\nIU won the two games over the weekend because of several improvements:\n• Better play from its strikers ' forwards Matt Fundenberger, a senior, and sophomore Michael Bock scored the Hoosiers' two goals against Virginia.\n• Improved defensive play ' junior sweeper Josh Rife played much better against Maryland and Virginia than he did in IU's opening weekend, while marking backs John Swann, a junior, and David Prall, a freshman, continued their solid play.\n• Emergence of depth ' IU got solid contributions from several of its bench players. Marking back Ryan Hammer, a junior and Marcus Chorvat, a sophomore, played well off the bench. Bock gave the Hoosiers an offensive spark.\nYeagley said he hopes those improvements, namely the depth, continue to help his team win games.\n"We certainly won't hesitate to make changes," he said. "It is a real plus. The season's long ' three games in a week. You're going to have injuries, and you've got to have depth.\n"In situations where players are fatigued or we need to change momentum and need a boost, I think we have some people who can come in and do that and still maintain our level or even up it."\nThe Hoosiers got offensive boosts from both players and set plays against Maryland and Virginia, when their restarts, which were an area in which they struggled in their first two games, proved effective. The most notable restarts this past weekend were IU's corner kicks, one of which turned into a goal. \n"We got tons of corners and free kicks against UCLA and Portland," said junior Ryan Mack, who was recently named Big Ten player of the week. "Over the weekend we knew that we had worked on those in practice. We worked on them a lot.\n"And they just turned out good in the games. People got to the right places, put their bodies on the line."\nThe Hoosiers put their two-game winning streak on the line tonight and know they must be up to the challenge.\n"We've just got to go in hard, ready to play and get it done in the first half," sophomore Phil Presser said. "We can't overlook the one game. We have to come out as hard as we have every other game. It's just another Division I team we have to beat"