IU Hoosiers 2025

If you noticed, we had a fitful first 15 minutes or so. After that, we were even or better than ND. One of the reasons was that coaches moved Wagoner up from his d-mid position to a more offensive role and moved Bruletti back to D-mid (where he looked very good). This isn't Wagoner's strong suit but, as a 5th year senior, he's played there before and, IMO, turned the midfield dynamics around. The goal by Oduro came from a really nice assist by Ault, although I thought Bogard intentionally dummied the pass to get Oduro open.

I think that one of the reasons that we were "holding on" (altho it really wasn't that bad - we had some chances) was because of the aforementioned "home cooking." Officiating was fairly one-sided. Maher's yellow was completely undeserved - wasn't even a foul. ND player very aggressively ran right up the back of Barger on the touchline but no foul was called. The players figure this out and have to respond accordingly, so they were sort of walking on eggs.

Regardless, wins anywhere on the road are hard to come by and we'll take it. BTW, I'd pick Easton Bogard to be on my team every time. Quality, through and through. Finally, Hoosier Army showed up in force. We may have outnumbered the Irish fans.

<sigh> Now for six days of R&R before UM.

 

Ugh - everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Simply put, UM wanted the win more than we did. We were second to most balls all night. UM went into tackles w/ conviction whereas we shied away from them. Despite that, we were able to score 2 goals and should have tied the match w/ 30 seconds left.

I do think that the PK awarded to UM at the end of the first half was, to say the least, harsh. Bruletti's hand was in playing position and a shot, if it caught any of his arm at all, hit him rather than vice versa.

We still have a lot of work to do if we want to stay at the top of the table.

 

Thankfully we bounced back with a nice win. There were some shakeups in the lineup and at first I thought it was going to backfire on us. We made a few glaring errors early in the game, one of which led to a PSU goal. We turned things around after the goal and actually scored on a corner! We don't often do that. That was Maher's first goal of his career. We kept up the pressure and were unlucky not to score on another corner at the 49 minute mark, hitting the crossbar and having a rebound shot cleared off the line by a PSU defender.

Second half was all IU, or should I say all Ault? His hat trick, scored at 58, 61, and 85 minutes, should cement B1G offensive player of the week. He also had the assist on IU's first goal. He had plenty of help, though - Bruletti, Nesci, Oduro, Wagoner, and Bogard all assisted on his goals.

 

Ugh - we p!ssed away another first half and it bit us big time. MSU scored the only goal - a goalasso early in the second half. We had only 5 shots anywhere near goal. In the 71st minute Ault did get off a shot that was well-saved, as was the rebound by Heuer.

 

This is true. Wagoner argued vociferously, but to no avail. Let's say they didn't score there - we would have another DRAW against the #89 team in the nation, a team that was also missing 3 of its starters. Gotta do better than that.

 

And better than that we did against UCLA. Granted, they are not the strongest team these days, but they have a pretty potent offense, consisting mainly of counters over the top to let their fast forwards to run on to. That's how UCLA got their two goals and they were convincing.

Unfortunately for UCLA, their defense wasn't up to the task. We still have 3 or so players w/ injuries, so the staff has been scrambling to find a good scoring combination. We may have done that. Notable lineup changes included Bogard and Murador as starters and it paid off. First, we didn't sleep through the first half. Got goals at 6', 16', and 19', scored by Ault, Murador, and Bogard, respectively. I would say that the lineup adjustment worked. The last goal was a PK w/ 4 seconds left when Stewart got behind the defense and got dragged down. They gave the PK to Wagoner, who acquitted himself well and scored his first career goal.

We still have some work to do defensively, as our backs get exposed too often. Next up - Washington in Seattle, a 10pm start. I'll definitely need a nap for that one.

 

Gawd. We just don't do well west of the Mississippi. Our play in our defensive third was just abyssmal. Either the Wash players are much, much faster than we are or we just didn't put in 100% effort. We gave UW so many chances - and they took them. 26 shots, 13 of which were on frame. It was easy for them because we played so lackadaisically. We were slow to pick up on defense, which caused us to run at players, only to have them move past us. UW's second goal was the result of sustained pressure. They were able to sustain their pressure because 1) we just moved incredibly slowly to cover and 2) we appeared to be completely unorganized defensively. Nobody seemed to know what they were doing.

We need to play with more urgency, especially on defense. If not, well...

 

They left Thursday morning.

 

The saga continues. We were in our usual first half doldrums, but managed to be tied 1-1 at the half. Shortly after the half we went down another goal. Shortly after, we started playing serious offense and scored a couple of goals. The last goal was scored w/ 4 seconds left, our second such goal in a couple of weeks.

We won, but there were still problems w/ our defense. Despite being up by a goal, we continued to expose defenders in one on one situations. I can't imagine why we would be so slow in dealing with counters. In a way, OSU was very similar to Washington, but their quality in their offensive third was somewhat lacking. Had it not been, the game would have had a different outcome.

 

Well, we managed to go down a goal in the middle of the first half and we had to wait until the second half to come back. The youngsters got it done (w/ a little Ault mixed in). Kinsella got around his man in the box and was brought down for a PK that Ault buried. Heuer was unlucky not to score a couple, but his second chance rebounded to Ault, who did what Ault does - score.

Michel started in goal and acquitted himself well with 4 saves.

 

What is there to say? We beat Div III Hanover easily on senior night. Scrambled lineup from beginning to end. It was nice to see Bezerra (2), Reidell, and Stewart get goals.

Another hat trick for Ault.

 

I think it's also a chance for the Div III Hanover players to experience a Div I environment. Both Hanover and IU got a lot of players into the game. Hard to say why IU does it, but most other DI schools have one of these in their schedules.