Shell Shocker

For 89 minutes and 50 seconds Saturday night, the IU men's soccer team was again coming up short in a game it felt it should be winning.\nFor 89 minutes and 50 seconds, the University of Maryland thought it had figured out what it took to \nfinally beat the Hoosiers.\nFor 89 minutes and 50 seconds, a record crowd of 6,203 fans cheered on the Terrapins, anticipating one of the biggest regular season wins in school history.\nTen seconds later, everything had changed.\nIn the waning moments, sophomore defender Greg Stevning silenced the crowd when he headed the ball into the goal from a corner kick by freshman forward Lee Nguyen to tie the game at three.\nStevning's score capped a three-goal Hoosier comeback in the final 17 minutes of the game and sent the contest into overtime. The No. 5 Hoosiers and No. 3 Terrapins ended the game in a 3-3 tie.\n"Some people questioned the character of this team this season," said junior forward Jacob Peterson. "We showed against Maryland that we can three-peat after coming back against one of the best teams in the country."\nIU coach Mike Freitag hailed Maryland forward Justin Garey, who notched the first two Maryland goals in the first half, as Player of the Year. Seven minutes into the game, Garey drew first blood for the Terrapins after his bicycle kick found the lower left corner from 16 yards for his 17th goal of the season. In the 30th minute, Garey made it 2-0 when he squeezed the ball near post past IU sophomore goalkeeper Chris Munroe. Ten minutes later, Terrapin sophomore Stephen King scored to give Maryland the 3-0 lead heading into halftime.\nFreitag said he told the Hoosiers to keep their composure in the second half while facing the three-goal deficit.\n"I told them at halftime to go out there and play like they are -- like champions," said Frietag. "I told them to play with no fear in the second half and try to win the half to gain positive momentum."\nTwenty-eight minutes into the second half, the Hoosiers finally got on the scoreboard as Peterson finished a cross from Nguyen after the freshman beat a defender down the right side of the field.\n"It was a different IU team in the second half," said Nguyen. "It's great to see that we can come back against one of the best teams in the nation. If we played like we played in the second half the entire game there was no way they could have kept up with us. It was a huge tie for us."\nLess than two minutes later, Nguyen pulled the Hoosiers to within one goal when pass deflected off a Maryland defender. After several chances to tie the game, the Hoosiers finally drew even with Stevning's goal.\n"We were all just positive at halftime," Peterson said. "We believed we would come back in the second half. For the first 30 minutes (of the second half) we had chances but we couldn't put them away. Once we got that first goal we knew the next two would come."\nEach team had chances to score in the overtime periods, with the Hoosiers having a 4-2 advantage on shots during the extra periods. While the team didn't walk away with the victory, the grittiness the Hoosiers displayed pleased Freitag.\n"I don't think any team in the nation would be able to do what we did," Freitag said. "We came back against a good team in a hostile environment from three goals down and, really, I thought we should have won it in overtime. It was a game that didn't hurt either team -- and it showed us what we need to get better"