Hoosiers hope to ruin return of former IU men's soccer star

Familiar faces will be in Bloomington this weekend.\nThe IU women's soccer team will take on two teams at Bill Armstrong Stadium in this weekend's Old National Bank Hoosier Classic -- one that IU coach Mick Lyon is well acquainted with, the other whose coach knows IU very well.\nThe Hoosiers (1-2-1) kick off their weekend at 7:30 p.m. Friday against Northern Arizona University in a game that will be a homecoming for Lumberjacks coach Andre Luciano. Luciano was a goalkeeper for IUmen's soccer team during its 1991 and 1992 Big Ten Championship seasons. He also helped lead Jerry Yeagley's 1991 team to the NCAA Final Four, the same year Luciano was named Big Ten Goaltender of the Year.\n"Anytime anyone graduates from here, they want to bring their team here and show what they can do outside of IU," said junior goalkeeper Stacey Van Boxmeer. "They want to come back to IU and be like, 'This is my field.' But we have to go out there that night and say, 'No, it's ours.'"\nLyon is hoping his team can do more than just rain on Luciano's homecoming.\n"We want to put his bonfire out, that's for sure," the IU coach said. "I know Andre. He's a good friend of mine, and he's excited to be bringing his team to Bloomington, his alma mater. He will definitely have his team pumped up. There won't be any doubt about it."\nThe Hoosiers finish up their weekend Sunday at 1:30 p.m. when they face the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. There is not as strong of a connection between the two programs as the NAU game, but Lyon has had experience coaching against the Panthers. From 1993 to 2001 Lyon was the coach at the University of Evansville, which plays in the Missouri Valley Conference along with UWM. Lyon holds a 2-3-0 record against the Panthers.\nThe Panthers are the third team that made the 2005 NCAA tournament that IU will face this year.\n"It's great," Lyon said about playing tough teams in the non-conference schedule. "You got to test the team against good teams. There's no point in playing every bad mid-major team in the country. You don't get anything from that."\nThe Hoosiers are hoping that playing quality teams early on will help them for when they enter the Big Ten season, one of the premiere conferences in the nation.\n"The better the teams are before the Big Ten, the more practice and the more competition we get in, so it's not such a difference when we get to the Big Ten," said junior defender Jenna Babcock.\nIU is coming off its best performance of the season, a 4-0 win against Texas Tech University. Not only did the Hoosiers catch an offensive spark in that game, but their defense was able to contain the Red Raiders and Van Boxmeer earned her first shutout of the season.\n"The back four are playing great together," said Van Boxmeer, who made four saves in the game. "No matter who's stepping in, no matter what combination, they're playing with confidence. They're playing with the ability to play forward and get the ball in the air. They're making my job a lot easier"