Hoosiers win first Big Ten match this season

Junior Josh Tudela scored his third goal in two games en route to securing IU's first Big Ten victory of the season over Michigan. The 2-0 win also handed the Wolverines their first conference loss of the season.\nThis is the longest it has taken IU to notch its first Big Ten regular season victory since the conference adapted men's soccer as a varsity sport in 1991. In 2003, it took IU two tries to get a Big Ten win when the team tied Michigan State in the Big Ten opener, then beat Michigan. \n"We don't look much into the past as we try to look at each game one by one," Tudela said. "We're going to take each game and try to win out and get a high seed in the tournament."\nThis season, IU tied Michigan State in the Big Ten opener and lost 2-1 in overtime to Penn State Sept. 30 but found its stride against the Wolverines.\nTudela's goal came in the 80th minute when he bent the ball from the left side of the 18-yard box into the right corner of the goal. Senior Jordan Chirico picked up the assist on the play, his second in 11 matches.\nTudela is now tied with fellow junior Jacob Peterson for most goals in the season with five each and Tudela is second on the team in points, with 12.\n"Tuds is a scoring machine right now," IU head coach Mike Freitag said. "We always talk about this when it starts to get cooler, he starts to play better. I think he's an example for a lot of young players on this team."\nBut it was freshman Lee Nguyen who broke IU's 0-0 stalemate with Michigan coming out of halftime. \nNguyen's third goal of the season came in the 53rd minute of the match when he scored on a penalty kick, the fifth for the Hoosiers so far this season.\nFrom the left side of the 18-yard line, fellow freshman Kevin Noschang back-heeled a pass to senior Brian Plotkin who was running to the ball. A Wolverine defender took down Plotkin in the penalty box and the official awarded IU a penalty kick. Before the foul, the IU coaching staff decided Nguyen would be the one to take a penalty kick if the situation arose.\n"Plotty did the work from there by taking two guys on and got fouled," Nguyen said. "All I had to do was put in the PK."\nIU moved to 7-1-3 overall and 1-1-1 in the Big Ten with the win, while Michigan dropped to 6-4-1 overall and 1-1-0 in Big Ten play. The Hoosiers have never lost to Michigan in nine meetings and are now a perfect 3-0 in Ann Arbor while outscoring the maize and blue 30-4 all-time.\nSophomore keeper Chris Munroe recorded his sixth clean sheet of the season, which included stopping two Michigan shots. Freitag said he was impressed by the Hoosiers' performance.\n"We had a good result," Freitag said. "I judge games based on results and how we played. I thought we were a little sub-par on the play, I thought we were a little slow and didn't play to our potential."\nThe cream and crimson conclude their four-match road trip next weekend at 8 p.m. Friday at Wisconsin and at 3 p.m. Sunday at Northwestern.