In soccer, there are few goals scored each game and, like many sports, you’ll have your slumps and times when things just don’t bounce your way.
Right now, that defines the IU offense.
While the Hoosier offense has scored just seven goals in seven games, its defense has quietly done its job and held strong, allowing just two goals in that | same span.
IU Coach Todd Yeagley has been experimenting with different lineups up front to try to get a goal past the goal line but to no avail in the Big Ten matches. The defense, on the otherhand, has plugged guys in and hasn’t missed a beat.
“Guys are ready to play,” senior defender Derek Creviston said. “That’s the benefit to being on this team, everyone is good. If some guy drops out, we have someone to step up and do the job.”
That is how it has gone lately with senior Billy McConnell missing some time with an injury along with junior Grant Lillard, who has also been out. With players like sophomores Rece Buckmaster and Timmy Mehl stepping in, it’s almost as if no one is missing.
As for pressure on the defense without the goal scoring coming up front, the backline isn’t feeling it. Creviston said that pressure to score goals pushes them to make things happen on the attack even if it may be frustrating coming up empty on the scoresheet.
Without leading goal scorer from a season ago Femi Hollinger-Janzen, the team’s identity is not that of an offensive power, and Yeagley said that is okay. All they need to do now is find guys to fill the void he left.
Senior Richard Ballard leads IU with four goals, but the team knows it will get more chances. The team is aware it is a good defensive team, which means there is no reason for there to be a new focus on its defense with the offense in a funk, said Yeagley.
“We’ve always focused on being a good defensive team,” Yeagley said. “It’s not like, ‘Wow, we need to step it up.’ We have always focused on being good in the defensive end and then we’re always one goal away from a victory.”
That’s the key, especially for a team that doesn’t score a whole lot of goals. There have been IU teams in the past that haven’t necessarily been offensive powerhouses, but have defended exceptionally well.
There is no Will Bruin walking through that door, as Yeagley put it, but as Mehl said, the team knows the goals are coming.
“We all work for each other, so we know those goals are going to come,” Mehl said. “We’re just working hard on defense and the results will come, we know that. It’s frustrating, obviously.”
IU will need to buck the current trend and start scoring goals, but they won’t change their motto on defense not to allow goals. That hasn’t changed, Creviston said, and there is no reason for it to.
“We set a precedent to not allow goals in and that’s how we win games, defense wins championships,” Creviston said. “Goals will come, they always do. We just have to find a way to get them in.”
The chances have been there as IU has outshot its opponents in its last three matches, and as Yeagley has said lately, it’s the quality in the final third that is lacking.
“We might dominate the game, but goals are hard to score, that’s the way it is and we don’t have a 20-plus-goal scorer on our team,” Yeagley said. “We don’t have a natural goal scorer and you might need a few more chances in the game to find that goal and I’m confident that if we keep creating quality chances, those goals will come.”
