Men's soccer seniors take home field for final time this weekend

Almost four seasons of 84 games, which amounted to 47 wins, 29 losses and 11 ties have taken seniors Andy Adlard, Daniel Kelly and Rich Balchan through their IU soccer careers.

These careers included a Big Ten title their freshman year, the joining of fellow senior Cameron Jordan — who was redshirted — and a trip to the NCAA quarterfinals their sophomore year, a firing their junior year and a fresh start with a familiar last name their senior year.

The four IU seniors will take the field Sunday at 5 p.m. for the final regular season home game of their careers.

No. 25 IU (8-5-2, 3-0-1) matches up against unranked Northwestern. The Hoosiers are 2-3-2 against unranked foes. 

This game is more than the last home hurrah. If IU is victorious, it will step away with the 14th Big Ten regular season title in program history, a title the seniors haven’t won since their freshman year.

But first, the Hoosiers will have to recover from the 4-1 beating they received from
No. 8 Butler.

“It’s just like any mistake or anything like that in soccer — you have to forget about it,” Kelly said. “It’s just one of those things you put in the back of your head. You learn from the mistakes, turn them into a positive and go from there.”

A weekend turnaround by the Hoosiers after a loss during the week isn’t something new for this IU squad. IU began the first six games of its season with a Friday loss and a Sunday victory. 

Kelly said it’s those Sunday comebacks his team needs to return to against the Wildcats.

“Look at Michigan State,” Kelly said. “Other games — even games we’ve lost and bounced back the next ones — just think positively and figure out what works for us, which is being on the same page and working hard. Go back to IU soccer where you work both sides of the ball.”

And go back to IU soccer where the team works on cleaning up its mistakes.
Twice this season — against California and Wisconsin — IU was caught thinking there was an offside that was never called that led to a goal and an eventual loss.

But first-year IU coach Todd Yeagley said he is handling the mistakes by coaching through them and letting his players learn from them.

“You certainly hope with each game where there is a mistake, win or lose, we address it and talk about it,” Yeagley said. “That’s why soccer’s a great sport. Players have to make decisions on the field, and we try to educate them the best.”

They are mistakes junior defender Tommy Meyer and his teammates want to make in practice. Meyer said IU has given away a couple games this season on mistakes.

“We have to find a way to eliminate that,” Meyer said. “It just comes with practice. You have to do the right things all the time. You can’t make the mistakes in practice because you will make them in games. You have to correct those in practice so when game time comes, there’s no mistakes.”

With a day of rest Thursday, IU will spend the weekend gearing up for its big game, but Meyer already knows what the team needs to do.

“We have to make sure we don’t have mental lapses during the game like we did (against Butler),” Meyer said. “If we don’t give teams goals, and we find a way to score, that’s all we have to do.”