The recipe for an IU win in 2014 has been to play solid in defense and hope for a goal.
That narrative was broken Wednesday.
IU won by a score of 4-2 against Central Florida in a match that saw IU give UCF plenty of chances to score in the first half.
“It was a different night,” senior defender Patrick Doody said. “We just weren’t at our sharpest. We put one in early and instead of putting the pedal down, we let off.”
After Jamie Vollmer’s goal 2:41 into the match, IU started to sit back and defend. Except UCF had no intentions of the match ending 1-0.
UCF has lost by the score line of 1-0 three times this season.
UCF found a goal 11:01 into the match after what seemed like the Knights’ first good spell of ?possession.
A corner kick curled into the box. It was bounced outside the box, where junior Jake Weiss hit it off the half volley off the underside of the crossbar and into the goal.
UCF did not stop there, creating three or four more quality scoring chances in the next 10 minutes that left IU feeling fortunate to still be level.
“We like to press, and at times we can be our own worst enemy,” IU Coach Todd Yeagley said. “As a staff we need to do a better job recognizing that and not being stubborn with how we want the game to go.”
However, with how often UCF was sending numbers forward, it left its defense lacking numbers. IU took advantage with two goals within 40 seconds of one another.
The start of the second half saw UCF create a good amount of chances resulting in a goal from junior Romario Williams four minutes into the half.
“He’s a good player,” freshman Grant Lillard said. “He’s very athletic and I think people are talking about him going pro next year. It’s a good challenge. It’s fun to play those types of guys.”
Williams gathered the ball at the left corner of the box with plenty of space. Williams turned to fire a shot across goal into the ?upper 90.
“We just have to learn to keep the foot on the pedal and keep going,” Lillard said. “I feel like after we scored the first goal we kind of slowed up a little bit. We have to keep the drive going and beat teams when they’re down and out.”
Yeagley said he felt the style of play wasn’t what caused the UCF goals and chances. Rather it was the inability to hold possession in the midfield consistently that hurt the Hoosiers.
“We just weren’t connecting passes well,” Yeagley said. “If you open the field up and you can’t connect, they are really ready to go again, and that’s where we got hurt tonight. They weren’t great chances but they were more dangerous than I would have liked them to have been.”
It was a pair of defenders who added a fourth to the IU tally, however. Sophomore Billy McConnell’s cross found the head of Lillard, who slotted the ball into the far post for his first career goal.
“We always feel confident regardless of how much we’re scoring or what the other team is doing,” Doody said. “This was probably one of the flukier scores we’ve had all year. So the fact that we still got the result without our best performance is important.”
