The band had just started playing to signify a minute left in overtime with Indiana and Akron vying for a spot in the Sweet Sixteen. Indiana forward Collins Oduro sent a cross that Jansen Miller headed in for the golden goal to give Indiana the 2-1 win.
The goal is the Indiana defender’s first goal since his 53rd minute of play as a Hoosier, which came on Sept. 14, 2022 at Butler in a 2-1 win. After yelling, sliding, dogpiles, hugging, and smiles Sunday, Jansen was poised in his presser.
“So this is a long time coming, but Collins played me in perfect ball, and I just had to go, go and get it,” Miller said about his goal. “It’s more like a will to win. I've been saying it's my last year, a lot of these guys last year, and we're doing whatever we want, whatever we can, to win.”
The win means the Hoosiers will head to their 10th straight Sweet 16 in the NCAA Championship. The stat is a feat in itself, but not for a five-time College Cup winner.
“The consistency I'm proud of, yeah, I am proud of that,” Indiana head coach Todd Yeagley said. “But at this moment, like right now, it doesn't really enter my mind.”
The Hoosiers had a rough second round matchup, which they hosted at Bill Armstrong Stadium in Bloomington. Akron boasts the leading scorer in the NCAA, Emil Jaaskelainen with 23 goals, and Indiana was coming off 17 days of rest.
They went down 1-0 in the first half, but strong halftime speeches from players and Yeagley lit a fire under the team. They had knocked off any rust and finally a goal of relief came in the 71st minute off the right boot of graduate forward Justin Weiss.
“Once I saw that the ball over the top and the keeper started stepping up, I knew I was going to go over the top there and so he stepped out a little too far,” Weiss said and followed with a chuckle.
The resilience was something everyone spoke about postgame, the team’s tenacity is their identity. Before the overtime Yeagley said he didn’t even have to speak to his team. He saw the players sensing the situation and spoke amongst themselves.
“They weren't like, look at them,” Yeagley said. “They don't want this. We want this. And they took that same kind of bravado out in the second overtime. And I thought again, we created some danger. We were proactive.”
Then in the 100th minute of play, Oduro's proactive cross to Miller’s head won the Hoosiers their second round matchup against the Zips.
The No. 14 seed Indiana moves onto the Sweet Sixteen for the 10th season in a row. They’ll play No. 3 seed Denver University in Denver on Nov. 30 at 4 p.m ET.
