IU loses in Louisville, drops to 7-6-1 on season

Louisville only took six minutes to net their first goal of the evening Wednesday against IU.

Unfortunately for the Hoosiers, a regulation soccer match is 90 minutes long.

The loss gives the Hoosiers their fourth loss to a ranked opponent this season and the Cardinals’ 10th shutout and win of the regular season.

“It was a good team playing a team that didn’t show up to play,” IU coach Mike Freitag said. “That’s why the result was what it was. This team is not good enough to come and play half-hearted. If it does we’ll get spanked like we did tonight.”    

Senior back Ofori Sarkodie credited Louisville with a solid match and a strong amount of intensity, something he said his team lacked.

“On our side, I felt like the first five, 10 minutes of the game we were just a little too lackadaisical,” Sarkodie said. “We didn’t bring enough intensity to the match.”

Louisville’s sophomore forward Colin Rolfe tacked on two goals for the Cardinals, one during the first and the other during the second half of the game.

Eight minutes before Louisville tacked on their fourth goal of the evening, IU sophomore forward Will Bruin received his first red card of the season. The red card could not have come at a worse time for Bruin, with a conference match-up against Northwestern on Sunday that he will now have to sit out.

“I definitely feel like we under-produced,” senior midfielder Lee Hagedorn said. “They just came in and scored right off the bat. They kept on pressing and we never really got right. It came back to haunt us by not coming out hard in the very beginning.”

Freshman goalkeeper Luis Soffner also saw the bench for the first time this season when he was replaced by senior Nemanja Kostic at the start of the second half.

“I made wholesale changes at halftime,” Freitag said. “I thought the group that started the game, many of them didn’t come with the heart that is IU soccer.”

After a double overtime loss to Michigan State on Sunday, the Hoosiers have now suffered back-to-back shutouts. The loss is the Hoosiers’ fourth shut-out loss of the season.

The only way Sarkodie sees his team turning their downhill slide around is by reaching within themselves.

“Basically, getting back to the drawing board and figuring out what personalities we have as a team,” Sarkodie said. “We got to find a way to bring better spirit, to bring the energy.”