IU knocked from Big Ten tourney

Junior goalkeeper Luis Soffner succeeded for a ninth time this season in shutting out IU’s opponent. The problem was, he didn’t shut out his own teammate, senior Tommy Meyer.

With just 13 minutes remaining in IU’s Big Ten semifinal match against Northwestern on Friday in Ann Arbor, Mich., the Hoosiers were holding onto a 1-0 lead. The Northwestern Wildcats were attacking once again.

Meyer saved a ball just inches away from the goal line, but when he tried to clear the shot, the ball ricocheted off of Soffner’s back, right into IU’s goal.

And just like that, Northwestern rode a fluke goal into penalty kicks, winning the shootout 3-2 and knocking the Hoosiers from the Big Ten tournament.

Even with the second game in just two weeks that the Hoosiers tied Northwestern in regulation, IU Coach Todd Yeagley said he thought his players put up a better fight Friday.

“We were definitely better prepared for them after seeing them late in the regular season,” Yeagley said. “We defended Oliver Kupe, who’s been pretty dangerous all season, and we did a pretty good job after our rough first 10 minutes.”

Northwestern’s offense started quickly, making two quick strikes on Soffner, but the first shot hit the bottom of the crossbar and the other struck the right post, and IU escaped the attack.

Then IU’s offense began to click. The Hoosiers maintained the ball for much of the rest of the first half, and with 25:30 remaining in the first period, Meyer played a ball down to freshman forward Eriq Zavaleta, who was posting up on a Northwestern defender in the right side of the box. Zavaleta spun around his opponent and snuck a shot into the left corner of the goal, his 10th goal of the season.

“It’s always good to be the team to get the first goal of the game,” Zavaleta said. “You can really dictate the pace of play there on out, and I really felt like we were able to do that pretty well.”

Even after IU’s own-goal, senior Chris Estridge said he still felt he and his teammates were going to be able to get another goal before the end of regulation and then again during one of the overtime periods.

“We just felt really confident with the ball,” Estridge said. “I really felt like another goal was coming.”

Yeagley also said he felt like his players played their best soccer toward the end of the game after they’d relinquished their lead, something they did often throughout the regular season.

“I really thought we were most aggressive in our chances late in the second half and in overtime,” Yeagley said. “But things happen, and I told our guys that it’s just how you respond to it.”

After seeing he and his teammates let go of another second-half lead, Estridge said he really feels the key going into the NCAA tournament is just simply scoring more goals and putting their opponents out of reach.

“In the rest of our games this season, we just really need to battle and play with a killer mentality,” Estridge said. “We really need to be pushing for those third and fourth goals instead of trying to hold onto those one- or two-goal leads because those have come back to bite us.

“We need to work on putting teams away instead of letting them hang around.”
After the tough loss, Yeagley said he tried to stress to his players that they still had games left to play. They still had to refocus and now have to forget their misfortunes from Friday.

“We’ve still got a lot of important soccer ahead of us,” Yeagley said. “There’s sure nothing to ease the pain and the deflating feeling from this loss, but we’ve got time to cool off and get our heads right. And once we’re back in Bloomington, we’ll get ready to go wherever the tournament draw takes us.”