IU home season starts Friday

After starting the season with a loss and a tie, the No. 12 IU men’s soccer team heads to South Bend on Friday for the Mike Berticelli Memorial Tournament where it faces an uncommon opponent in New Mexico at 5 p.m.

“I don’t think New Mexico is unfamiliar, at least for the coaching staff,” IU coach Mike Freitag said. “We’ve played them in the past. Our guys know the success New Mexico has had in recent years.”

In 2004, the Lobos defeated IU 1-0 in overtime. It was the only time the two schools met.

New Mexico is the first of a five-game road stand for IU, which is the team’s longest of the year.

Past road success leaves Freitag confident.

“In some ways sometimes in the past, our team has played better on the road,” he said. “Maybe there are more distractions at home. When you go on the road, you’re here for one thing: to play the game. Traditionally, the road’s been okay for us.”

IU stays in South Bend during the weekend to face Seattle at 11:30 a.m. Sunday. Soon to follow are road games against No. 1 Akron and Florida International next weekend, as well as Wisconsin on Sept. 25.

Regardless of where matches are played, sophomore forward Will Bruin said it is simply a matter of time before the offense, which has been slow out of the gate, gets clicking. 

“Within time, we’ll start to gel together,” Bruin said. “We’ll know where each other are going to be. We’ve only been with each other about three weeks since the start of preseason, so it’ll start coming. We’re seeing good things in practice now. The goals will come.”

IU recorded a single goal in the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic against St. John’s and Wake Forest.

In order to get the ball rolling this season, Bruin said that baby steps are key.

“We’ve just got to stay focused and we can’t make excuses,” Bruin said. “We have to take each game at a time and can’t look forward to the next week traveling. We are just going to have to take each weekend by itself and each game by itself. 

“The coaches will put us in a good situation to know what to expect.”