Indiana men’s soccer came into this season having not lost a regular-season home match since 2015. On Friday, Indiana dropped its third match at Bill Armstrong Stadium this year with a 2-1 overtime loss to Michigan off a golden-goal from senior forward Derick Broche. Indiana moved to 2-3-0 at home this season with the loss and sits at 5-3-1 overall.
‘The students have been awesome, the fans have been great so you want to reward them,” head coach Todd Yeagley said after the match. “I feel for the fans because they usually leave Armstrong smiling.”
Junior forward Victor Bezerra scored Indiana’s lone goal in the 68th minute, his first this season, to put Indiana up 1-0. Bezerra, who scored 12 goals last season, was injured earlier in the year and had good looks at the goal this season that were denied by the opposing goalkeepers. He was finally able to get on the board nine games into this season after taking six shots and putting three on goal before facing Michigan.
After junior forward Herbert Endeley was fouled in the box, Bezerra stepped up and sunk the penalty shot into the bottom left corner of the net.
“It’s important for him to get a goal and we didn’t hesitate to put him on that,” Yeagley said. “The risk-reward was too big to get him a chance, and he did and he didn’t hesitate.”
Indiana outshot Michigan in both halves of regulation, but Michigan found an equalizer in the 81st minute off the foot of junior forward Evan Rasmussen. Neither team responded afterwards, sending the game to overtime tied 1-1.
The Hoosiers took a 14-8 shot and 8-3 shot on goal advantage into the overtime period, but the team wasn’t able to create any offense before the Wolverines took the victory.
Despite the loss, Yeagley said he felt the team was in control of the match.
“We played well today in most phases,” Yeagley said. “We had the better of it and the coach said that after the game, they were fortunate. We’ve been on the other side of it sometimes so the cut goes around. If we perform like that and continue to create chances we’ll be fine.”
Indiana junior goalkeeper Roman Celentano faced two shots in the overtime period and made a diving save to keep the team alive in the 91st minute, but he wasn’t able to keep Broche’s shot out of the back of the net. Michigan freshman goalkeeper Hayden Evans faced eight shots on goal and saved seven.
Bezerra and Endeley led the way for Indiana’s offense, combining for nine shots and four shots on goal.
With the win, Michigan jumped into a second-place tie with Indiana in the Big Ten behind Maryland. Indiana moved to 2-2-0 in the Big Ten this season and has just four matches to make up ground in hopes of winning both the conference regular-season and tournament titles for the fourth-straight year.
“It’s a good year for the Big Ten. Everyone’s getting some good results out of conference,” Yeagley said. “Every game is going to be a really tough matchup in different ways, and that’s the great thing about our conference.”
Indiana has three more chances to pick up wins at Bill Armstrong Stadium before its next away game. The earliest of which is at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday against the University of Nebraska Omaha.
