Undefeated team to face former head coach Freitag

Three years ago, Mike Freitag and Todd Yeagley stood on the same sideline.
They wore the same colors. They shared the same plays.

They had one common goal: recruit the best for that eighth star.

But in November 2009, Freitag was shown the way out, and then-Wisconsin coach Todd Yeagley, son of the legendary IU soccer coach Jerry Yeagley, was ushered in.
On Sunday, Yeagley’s Hoosiers and Freitag’s Denver Pioneers will meet, but Yeagley and his team aren’t focusing on that match.

Their mentality is to win the next one, Yeagley said, and that starts with
Bucknell.

After two wins last weekend in the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic against St. Louis and Dayton, the No. 10-ranked men’s soccer team is back in action this weekend in South Bend for the Mike Berticelli Memorial Tournament. They will face Bucknell and Denver.

“Bucknell only lost two starters (from last season),” IU Coach Todd Yeagley said. “But our focus is on our performance. Our performance the first weekend and the second weekend was not necessarily our opponents, but our focus and energy.”

The Hoosiers will kick off tournament action Friday at 5 p.m. against Bucknell, who is 2-1-1 on the season. This match will be IU’s first meeting against the Bison and the second time the team has ever played an opponent from the Patriot League.

Forward Alec Purdie grew up near the South Bend area. He’s made the trip close to his hometown of Elkhart for a few years now. The senior said he’s looking forward to one last homecoming.

“Obviously, I’m expecting two wins, but hopefully there’s a good crowd to come home to, like normal,” Purdie said. “There’s always a good turnout for the team. Four wins under our belt in a row would be huge, but right now, we’re focusing on Friday night, on winning against that team.”

IU will then finish tournament play in South Bend on Sunday when the Hoosiers face Freitag and Denver at 11:30 a.m.

But Yeagley and Purdie don’t view the game as any sort of rivalry.
“I’ll chat with (Freitag) and catch up,” Purdie said. “But at the end of day we’re just looking to get another win.”

Yeagley has faced Freitag only once before — in Freitag’s final season, when Yeagley was in his first season with the Badgers.

“You’re looking at executing and winning games that you don’t even take a second to think who you’re playing against,” Yeagley said. “It’s about the players and the competition and the game. It’s not about the coaches, and it’s no different then it will be on any game.”

Going into the weekend, IU has the offensive upper hand in both matches, having scored nine goals in three games this season, to Bucknell’s seven and Denver’s zero.

“We can score a lot of goals every game,” Purdie said. “Nine goals — we probably had six, seven different goal scorers, so it’s spread everywhere. You can’t narrow it down to one person.”