When Indiana freshman Michael Nesci was subbed on with just over 10 minutes remaining Tuesday night, head coach Todd Yeagley delivered this message to him:
“Get a goal.” (with an extra word in there)
Nesci, who told assistant coach Kevin Robson he would score a goal if subbed in, followed Yeagley’s marching orders and buried his second goal of the season in the 85th minute. This one was to complete the Cream and Crimson’s 3-2 comeback over Kentucky.
Nesci, dressed in a new cream kit with a faint silver stripe down the center, sprinted into the box, received a pass from Collins Oduro, and struck it on his left foot, taking a small deflection and winding up into the back of the net.
Nesci thought the ball was going in regardless, but ran to the corner flag, where he wound up at the bottom of the dogpile as his teammates joined him in celebration.
“It just felt like hundreds of bodies on me,” Nesci said. “When you're a little kid and you're like, those are the games that you hope for when you get older. That was, that was one of them, for sure.”
Indiana has been looking for that lucky bounce all year, and it could not have come at a more opportune time, considering Kentucky got its own luck in the first half. The Wildcats’ second goal was following a corner and took a wicked deflection off of Tommy Mihalic into the back of the net.
The first 45 minutes were very much reminiscent of the last time the teams met at Bill Armstrong Stadium two years ago. Indiana controlled the play but found themselves on the wrong end of the score. That match ended 3-0 Kentucky and the Wildcats were well on their way to a similar scoreline after leading by a pair at the break.
“There's not a head down in the locker room,” Mihalic said. Kentucky had only three shots in the first half, but had two goals, the first coming from Logan Dorsey, the younger brother of former IU star Griffin.
Indiana, on the other hand, had 14 shots and 10 corners, but no goals.
The second half turned into the Tommy Mihalic show. The senior bagged a brace in just four minutes, scoring in the 53rd and 57th minute to quickly turn the match around. Mihalic now has eight goals this season, second in the conference after only two last year.
Indiana kept pushing and pushing for the third, but it seemed that the Hoosiers wouldn’t be able to break through. It would have been fitting that Indiana and Kentucky — who came in with nine combined draws in their 19 matches — would share the spoils.
But, the difference was the swap for Nesci in favor of Justin Weiss, something Yeagley was hesitant to do last Friday against Washington.
“I thought maybe we needed that against Washington, looking back (at) that last 10 minutes,” Yeagley said. “So I was using that in my head. What could we use in the last 10 minutes?”
Instead of back-to-back 2-2 draws, it resulted in a 3-2 win, the second time in as many Tuesdays that the Hoosiers won a thriller by that scoreline, after beating No. 8 Wisconsin last week. Not only that, the match marked three straight where an Indiana player scored two goals after Oduro and Quinton Elliot did so in the previous two.
As much as Indiana deserved to win this match, considering they were responsible for 22 of the 26 total shots and eight of the 10 shots on goal, they needed it for their resume, too.
Indiana entered the night with just one win at home, against Yale in early September. A second non-conference win also provides a boost to their RPI, which now sits at 36.
The new uniforms, which Yeagley and all the players seemed to love, may have given us a new look (literally, and figuratively) of this Indiana team. It was the first time since the 2019 season opener against Pitt that Indiana came from two goals down to win. That match in August five years ago ended with an overtime winner, and the timing of Nesci’s goal made it seem like it was in OT.
“This is gonna be a moment for the season,” Yeagley said afterward.
If Indiana does go on another deep October run, this will undoubtedly be the match everyone points to as the fulcrum. Now at 4-3-5, Indiana will look to win two straight for the first time all year, as the Hoosiers conclude their three-match homestand on Friday against Penn State in a rematch of the Big Ten Championship.
