Indiana women's soccer battles to scoreless tie with Maryland

Outshooting Maryland 7-2 in shots on goal, the Indiana women’s soccer team had a very good opportunity to win Sunday’s contest against the Maryland Terrapins, but couldn’t find the back of the net en route to a scoreless tie in College Park.

Anna Bennett was huge in getting opportunities on offense, as she had three of the seven shots on goal for Indiana. Indiana will now face two tough opponents to end Big Ten play and focus on the postseason.

IU came out hot, getting two shots on goal in the first three and a half minutes. Anna Bennett and Megan Wampler made some huge plays on offense to put some pressure on the Terrapin defense. Maryland would eventually get some shots up, but Jamie Gerstenberg and the rest of the defense made some great plays to keep the Terps scoreless.


The offenses really picked up in the later part of the first half. Along with that, the Indiana defense did a great job of poking the ball away from the Maryland offense and making them throw it in many times. This led to limited offensive chances for the Terrapins and the Hoosiers seemed confident in their game plan going into the locker room.

Offensively, the momentum shifted more in Maryland’s favor in the second half. The Terps got four shots on goal in the first 20 minutes and gave IU a little wake-up call. As much as it put pressure on the IU defense, the offense eventually got going again and began to get some shots up on goal.

Suddenly the offense went silent for the remainder of the second half. Neither team could really get any momentum going and the two teams went to overtime — Indiana’s fourth overtime game of the year.

IU did a good job of playing a clean first overtime. Maryland was playing very aggressively and committing fouls, but the experience of the Hoosiers helped the team stay calm and execute the game plan, leading to a second overtime to decide the winner.

The second overtime was very quiet on the offensive side, as IU had the only shot on goal the entire period. Maryland committed another three fouls while the Hoosiers maintained their composure in a hostile environment. The clock hit triple zeroes and IU tied the Terrapins 0-0.

This puts the Hoosiers at 9-3-4 on the season with two important games to go. The next challenge for IU will be the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at home on Thursday. Rutgers has been playing great thus far, ranked second in the Big Ten. This will be a game that could really show what this Hoosier team is made of.