Andrew Gutman had a bit of a cheering section Sunday — not just the Hoosier fans in attendance, but a large amount of relatives who came to watch the Illinois native.
The freshman defender gave his fan section something to cheer about when he scored the only goal in IU’s 1-0 win Sunday at Northwestern, giving the Hoosiers their first points of the conference season.
He also scored in a familiar setting. This season, Northwestern is playing its home matches at Toyota Park, the home of the Chicago Fire. In high school, Gutman played for the Chicago Fire Academy and played a handful of games at Toyota Park. But before tonight, he had never found the back of the net there.
“It was pretty special scoring here especially because a lot of my family came out,” Gutman said. “I had my aunts, uncles, grandparents, so it was nice to score in front of them. And they’re all big IU fans.”
Gutman’s goal, a shot from outside the box that IU Coach Todd Yeagley said was a “wonder-strike,” came in the 42nd minute off the assist from junior midfielder Tanner Thompson.
The goal was Gutman’s first of his career and Thompson’s Big Ten leading sixth assist of the season.
“I thought he read the defense well, they weren’t stepping up to him,” Yeagley said. “The window opened and he said why not.”
Gutman was attacking the Wildcat defense early and often Sunday. His goal came off the left back’s third shot on goal at that point. Northwestern ended the match with two shots on goal.
Part of that is impressive for Gutman but also for the IU defense as a whole.
The first Northwestern shot on goal did not come until the 86th minute. The easily-saved free kick was the first shot on goal IU had allowed in over 178 minutes of play, dating back to last weekend against Rutgers.
IU didn’t allow a shot on goal for the entirety of its 3-0 win against Evansville on Wednesday.
“I thought we defended well as a whole,” Yeagley said. “We didn’t give them much on the day, I thought we were locked in and did a nice job dealing with the pressure late.”
The win Sunday gives IU its first points this conference season after losing its first two conference matches.
Yeagley said the match at Northwestern was by no means a must-win game but also did not downplay the importance of coming back to Bloomington with the maximum amount of points.
“This wasn’t going to define our season one way or the other, but this was a big one no question,” Yeagley said.
IU now find itself in a better spot in the standings than Maryland, last year’s regular season champions, did at this point last year, as the Terrapins went winless through the first three conference matches of the season.
Yeagley said he stressed the importance of winning Sunday’s game in terms of winning a match, not winning the entirety of the regular season.
“We played some really good soccer today in many phases of the game which is great,” Yeagley said. “But we needed to get three points just psychologically to see yourself in the middle of the pack.”
