Men's soccer's double-overtime contest against Wisconsin ends in tie

Sunday the Hoosiers showed they were stronger.

They outshot Wisconsin 21-7, outplayed the Badgers while dominating time of possession and stifled any real Badger threats.

IU and Wisconsin ended in a 1-1 tie at Bill Armstrong Stadium, moving the Hoosiers to 5-3-1 (1-0-1) and the Badgers to 1-6-2 (0-0-1).

“I like the fact that these guys are upset,” IU coach Todd Yeagley said. “They wanted to win that game, and they felt that they should have.”

The stat sheet says they should have, too.

Wisconsin’s Chris Prince slipped in the Badgers’ lone goal on a broken play 19:29 into the game. A series of headers ultimately found the back of the net after Prince put it by an unsuspecting Luis Soffner, but the IU sophomore goalkeeper and his teammates argued an offside should have been called.

“They just kind of lumped it into the box, and it got flicked on,” junior midfielder Chris Estridge said. “A lot of confusion with our backs and our goalie, they were all saying he was offside. We all thought he was offside, so we’ll have to see what happened in the replay.”

Wisconsin’s only other shot on goal came in the second overtime.

The Badgers kept IU’s top scorers, junior forward Will Bruin and senior midfielder Andy Adlard, in check, but they could not keep freshman midfielder Harrison Petts out of the net as he recorded his second goal of the year.

“It’s frustrating,” Petts said. “I think when you outplay a team like that, you have the ball in your half most of the time and you only come away with a draw, it’s frustrating. But at the same time, we’ve got to look forward and say we played well.”

Bruin led the game with seven shots.

A key moment in the game came late in the second half as Wisconsin goalkeeper Ryan Vint gathered two of his 11 saves off Bruin shots, the first of which he tipped with his left hand on a sharp try, the second off a header that followed the corner kick.
Petts also had a long ball that nearly sailed over a diving Vint.

“The goalie had a great game,” Petts said. “He made a couple great plays on Will, especially, right there in a row. It’s tough and just adds to it. All the props to him for making the saves, but at the same time, we kind of made him look good because we didn’t finish our chances like we could have.”

A share of the Big Ten lead with Ohio State was on the line as the Buckeyes knocked off Michigan State 2-1 Sunday; however, after the tie, IU sits alone at second place and avoided a crucial conference loss.

Estridge said the tie is a good one because of the conference implications.

“Overall, it’s good because we’re still at the top of the table,” said Estridge, who finished the night with two shots on goal and an assist to Petts. “Pretty good result overall because we didn’t drop.”