IU senior defender Billy McConnell has flown under the radar during his last season in Bloomington.
McConnell has had quite the senior season. He has just one goal, but he paid the price for it. The IU right back scored against Michigan on Sept. 14 and had his ankle stepped on by a UM defender, which made him miss a few matches.
Through all of that, McConnell has brought a certain sense of consistency to this team. With IU’s success, he says it’s been all good, but has yet to get back to 100 percent.
“It’s been up and down,” McConnell said. “With injuries, my ankle is not fully healed, and I still have tape on it. Everyone has been working their tails off, so it’s been hard work. So far, it’s been good.”
McConnell has been a staple in IU’s backline since arriving in Bloomington as a freshman in 2013. He made eight starts that year and has had more every year except for this season, because of injury. Nonetheless, McConnell will be missed after this year.
IU Coach Todd Yeagley had nothing but praise for his senior right back.
“He brings a lot of experience, and he’s very tough. He’s one of our best defenders,” Yeagley said. “He brings a presence to our team and continues to get better every year with his distribution and his technical side of his game and that’s shown this year. The injury was not great time, right in the middle. When he’s not on the field, we miss qualities that he brings to our team.”
IU had its Senior Day celebration Sunday in the win against Michigan State. With that win, the team gets to play one more game at home.
McConnell said it will be tough to say goodbye to a field he has called home for four seasons. Sunday’s match against Northwestern will be the last match of the season at Jerry Yeagley Field.
“Oh man, it’s going to be a sad one, but it’s going to be exciting,” McConnell said. “We’re going to hopefully end on a good note.”
Another memorable day came Sept. 4, a day that even made Deadspin. The Hoosiers were taking on defending national champion Stanford Cardinals at home. The game ended in a 0-0 draw, but things got out of hand for a moment.
The game was physical throughout, and the Hoosiers had gone down to 10 men because of IU junior defender Grant Lillard’s second yellow card. With the physicality came a shot below the waist from Stanford player Foster Langsdorf on McConnell. It was a bush-league shot, but the senior kept his cool.
“A lot of different things, like maybe I should get up and punch this kid in the face,” McConnell said. “Throughout the years, coaches have told me to keep your cool and don’t retaliate because you’re always going to be the one that gets a card for retaliating.”
That moment was just part of the crazy season it has been for McConnell. When he was out, the Hoosiers stayed afloat, but something seemed to be missing. The senior brings a lot to the team that doesn’t always show up in the box score.
Yeagley called this senior class eclectic and will miss the experience a few of them bring from winning it all.
“This is a really fun group,” Yeagley said. They are all pretty different. I like that. You try to recruit some of those qualities. The one consistent thing is that they’ve really put the program in a good place for the time that they have been here, and that’s what I’m proud of.”
