Indiana men’s soccer took down Michigan State 1-0 Sunday afternoon on the road in East Lansing, Michigan. Indiana freshman midfielder Patrick McDonald scored the game’s lone goal, the first of his Indiana career.
“We needed (the win),” McDonald said after the match on BTN Plus. “Last week at Northwestern (we) got a big win, good performances all around, and this really helps us moving forward into Friday playing Michigan.”
Michigan State outshot Indiana 16-4 and had a 6-1 shots on goal advantage, but six saves from junior goalkeeper Roman Celentano gave Indiana its third clean sheet of the season.
With McDonald’s goal in the 48th minute, Indiana’s freshmen have scored five of the team’s ten goals this season. Freshmen forward Samuel Sarver and midfielder Tommy Mihalic each have two goals.
McDonald’s goal came off a corner kick sent in by senior defender Spencer Glass. Neither team controlled the ball after it bounced into the box off an attempted heading clear by a Spartan defender, but the ball bounced to McDonald after the Spartans failed to clear it out of the box.
The ball bounced to McDonald just outside the six-yard box and the freshman took a strike on his first touch, perfectly placing it into the top left corner out of the reach of the Spartan goalkeeper.
“First career goal felt great,” McDonald said. “We came up here to East Lansing yesterday ready to bring points back to Bloomington and that’s what we did.”
Celentano weathered nine shots and four shots on goal from the Spartans in the first half, setting the Hoosiers up for McDonald’s go-ahead goal early in the second. He saved two more after McDonald’s goal to keep the Spartans off the board and give the Hoosiers their second Big Ten win this season.
With the win, Indiana moved into a tie for first place in the Big Ten standings with Maryland, which is 2-0 in its Big Ten slate so far, and remained undefeated on the road this season. Indiana has won two straight in the Big Ten after losing its opener to Rutgers on Sept. 17.
Indiana is looking to win the Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles for the fourth straight season and will face current first place Maryland in its regular-season finale on Oct. 31. This preseason, the Big Ten coaches’ poll unanimously picked Indiana to win the conference.
The Hoosiers moved to 5-2-1 and 2-1-0 in the Big Ten this season.
Indiana will head back to Bloomington for a four-game home stand starting at 5 p.m. Friday against Michigan at Bill Armstrong Stadium. Michigan is 4-4-1 and 1-1-0 in the Big Ten after taking down Northwestern 3-1 on Sunday. The game will be televised on ESPNU.
