WESTFIELD, Ind. – With six minutes and 18 seconds remaining, IU senior midfielder Francesco Moore went toward the IU bench.
It was the first opportunity he had all day to rest as he was being substituted for senior midfielder Trevor Swartz.
Instead of taking a seat to catch his breath, Moore embraced every single coach and player on the IU sideline, with his team just minutes away from clinching the Big Ten Tournament title.
IU defeated Michigan 3-0 on Sunday Grand Park to claim its first "Big Ten Double," winning both the conference tournament and regular season titles, since 2006.
The Big Ten Tournament title was also the 13th overall in program history.
"Just having a moment with a couple of the seniors that were off the field, just telling them how proud I was. It was good," IU Coach Todd Yeagley said.
After being away from the team for the first two games of the tournament, sophomore midfielder Griffin Dorsey was back into the starting lineup for IU in the championship match. It was an earlier-than-expected arrival, as he was participating in the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship with the U-20 United States National Team.
Dorsey made his presence felt, as he had four shots and a pair of assists in 54 minutes played. He constantly applied pressure to the Michigan defense and was giving IU the offensive firepower it sometimes lacked when he was out of the lineup.
“We were all pretty excited when we got the news from the national team. He was pretty excited to come back and help us," Yeagley said. "I don’t know if it would’ve been more difficult, I certainly feel like we could’ve got the job done, but he helped us.”
Senior midfielder Cory Thomas was named the Most Outstanding Offensive Player of the Tournament and senior defender Andrew Gutman earned Most Outstanding Defensive Player of the Tournament honors.
After scoring the game-winning penalty kick in the semifinals against Maryland, Thomas was able to give IU the early lead within the first seven minutes of Sunday's match.
Swartz sent a shot into the Michigan penalty box, but it was saved by the Michigan goalkeeper. Then, Dorsey fired a rebound shot, which was also deflected to the ground by the goalkeeper. Finally, the ball bounced perfectly off the ground to Thomas, who was able to just tap it into the net.
“It was a pretty easy goal, but the magnitude of it was definitely high,” Thomas said. “I was pretty excited. It was a great play from Trevor to put a nice shot on goal. I can thank my teammates for that one.”
The second half saw the Hoosiers put away the Wolverines for good. Senior midfielder Jeremiah Gutjahr had his first goal of the season in the 72nd minute with a diving header from seven yards out. Then, senior midfielder Austin Panchot created a turnover roughly two minutes later and sent a cross toward sophomore midfielder Spencer Glass, who flicked the ball in from close range past the goalkeeper.
Following the match, Gutman told his teammates to put on their black and blue tournament champion shirts and hats. As they began to pose as a team in front of the championship banner, Gutman came running around his teammates to lay next to the trophy.
The Hoosiers didn’t know whether to hold up either one or two fingers to recognize the tournament title by itself, or the completion of the second goal the team established to start the season by winning the conference tournament.
Gutman had the answer.
“Hell yeah boys, hold up two,” Gutman said.
