After a 5-0 thrashing of Michigan on Tuesday, Indiana returned to Bloomington to kick off Homecoming Weekend and hosted the other team from the Great Lake State — the Michigan State Spartans.
While Hoosier Hysteria may have drawn some attention away from Bill Armstrong, Indiana’s play in October has opened eyeballs across the country, as the Hoosiers are in prime position to earn a national seed following a 3-1 win over the Spartans, the team’s fourth straight victory.
Here are my three takeaways:
No brace, no problem
For the first time since the Ohio State match three weeks ago, an Indiana player did not record a brace, ending the streak at five. But, the goals coming from three different sources display the depth Indiana has on the offensive end of the pitch. Sam Sarver, Justin Weiss, and Patrick McDonald all found the back of the net. Sarver and Weiss now have three goals this season and McDonald scored his second goal in 2024, this one from the penalty spot.
With McDonald’s penalty, Tommy Mihalić grabbed the ball when the initial ruling was given. But, after the VAR review, the two seniors met with assistant coach Christian Lomeli, who is in charge of penalty assignments considering he’s a former goalkeeper. Both Mihalić and Lomeli agreed that McDonald’s tendencies were a better fit, and McDonald made no mistake with his spot-kick to give Indiana a 2-0 lead five minutes before halftime. Even with penalty kicks, there is depth within the squad, as now three different Hoosiers attempted penalty kicks this year, which could prove its worth in the postseason…
Sarver scored after a scolding
There tends to be that one player that a coach is harsher on because they believe in “tough love” and know how and when a scolding is necessary. It seems like head coach Todd Yeagley and Sarver have that relationship, as Sarver admitted that he was criticized severely at halftime, and responded with a goal just five minutes into the second half to restore Indiana’s two-goal lead after Michigan State scored a penalty of its own just before the break. Sarver ran over and hugged Yeagley.
“I felt I owed him a little hug just for having faith in me,” Sarver said afterward, admitting that some coaches would have just benched him for his subpar performance in the first 45 minutes. But, Yeagley has the faith in Sarver to let him keep going, and it paid off almost immediately.
Two hundred wins for Todd
The victory marked Yeagley’s 200th win at Indiana, adding another milestone to the remarkable coaching career Yeagley has put together. The boss admitted he had no idea about it and the team did a good job keeping it under wraps until the final whistle sounded. Yeagley doesn’t pay attention to numbers, but his first reaction was “Didn’t we do this at Virginia,” referring to the celebration the team had when Yeagley reached 200 wins as a head coach (Todd won seven games at Wisconsin in his lone season as the head coach there in 2009). But, the seventh win this season meant Yeagley and co. could celebrate once again, and he certainly was doused with the Gatorade bath in the locker room.
For now, Indiana sits all alone atop the Big Ten standings for the first time all season with a 5-1-2 record in the conference, good for 17 points. With just two Big Ten matches left, Indiana has everything to play for, from the Big Ten regular season title — which would mean an automatic bye to the Big Ten Semifinals — to NCAA Tournament seeding.
The Hoosiers get a much-deserved week off before heading out west to play UCLA next Friday for some Big Ten Soccer after dark, as that match kicks off at 10:30 p.m. ET.
