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ccgeneral

#IUMS - 2017 College Cup

By ccgeneral, in Other Indiana Hoosiers Athletics

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Aaron    4,294

Aaron
Posted

Wow! What a night! What a game! What a crowd! Place was nearly full (5,450 was announced crowd which was 6th largest ever and largest ever for a tourney game I believe) and completely electric. I like to move around each half and sit on whichever side IU is trying to score on. I manged to do that tonight but finding a seat was tough which is a rarity at Armstrong which is a huge stadium by college soccer standards (6,500 capacity). It is the second largest crowd I have seen by far exceeded only by the sellout in early 2013 where we lost to UCLA in OT. There were plenty of people standing above bleachers on main side and along fence by field as well. Only vacant seats were small scraps of empty seats on main side and maybe first couple rows of bleachers on student side. Percentage wise is was probably as full as IU Duke game Wednesday and traffic leaving game was quite heavy around stadium which is a rarity for soccer.    

Onto the game. First off I may have underrated MSU in my power rankings early today and think they belong well inside top 10 now. Besides Maryland and Notre Dame the only team we have played on completely equal footing talent wise that can match us pound for pound. It was clear the first 10 minutes we were shell shocked by the massive step up in competition from first 2 tourney games and gave up the goal. We then asserted ourselves rest of half and missed several great chances. In 2nd half we continued to press and finally got the equalizer on a strange corner and I am still not sure how it deflected in. After we scored MSU pretty much dominated the rest of the game and had all the chances and we were probably lucky to get to PK's.

In PK's I am still not sure if benching Muse for Caulfield in PK's against Wiscy was completely stupid or completely brilliant and will never know which it is. With the performance Muse had tonight it looks completely dumb but you could argue if MSU had footage of him trying to stop Wiscy's PK's they may have known his tendencies better and had better luck against him. As for us we actually did a great job taking our PK's for most part. 

I don't necessarily think we deserved to advance but given how many heartbreaking OT and PK losses we have taken in postseason last few years the soccer gods owed us one and they delivered. I congratulate MSU for a great season but also think they have enough sports that are uber successful and succeeding big time with this year (Basketball, Football, Volleyball to name a few) across their department versus IU who is having a terrible year sports wise in the major sports save for soccer so on that logic we deserve it more than them but you must earn it and glad we did.

The scene after Muse saved the final PK was the best I have seen at the stadium. The entire Hoosier Army rushed the field and mobbed the team on the sideline and many people in the crowd stayed for a few minutes and some even longer. I half considered rushing the field myself but decided I was to old for that being almost 10 years out of college. I did go down to the fence line for the PK's and walked around it very slowly for the next 30 minutes to take in the atmosphere as everyone celebrated. I managed to get to the exit of the field where the players go to the locker room which they did 15-20 minutes later. The team was so elated and excited and it was awesome to see their faces as they walked in gradually a couple at a time. What stuck out was when Lillard half jokingly said to Panchot 'we knew we had it the whole time' and the few people around laughed. Shortly after Swartz jumped on someone and hugged them (I'm assuming his dad or another male family member) really hard and almost knocked them over. Seeing the smiles on the teams faces as they walked to locker room was maybe the coolest moment of the night that had many awesome moments.

Overall this was by far the greatest game I have witnessed at Armstrong and very glad I went. I was at the elite eight match-up in 1997 when we beat USF 6-0 to go to College Cup but was barely 10 years old and have no memory of it except we won easily 6-0. I don't remember the goals, the crowd or the atmosphere in the slightest so glad I got a second chance to see IU advance to the College Cup 20 years later where I will fully remember the great memories for the rest of my life.

Back to watching on TV Friday night for first time since PSU in first game of Big Ten Tourney but am all set to go Sunday if we win as long as weather is decent (Southwest is awesome with their no change fees and free cancellations allowing you to book way in advance and use credit within next year for a different time if IU does not make it and I fly plenty). 

Go Hoosiers! I am so elated right now!      

   

        

ccgeneral, WayneFleekHoosier, ThompsonHoosier and 5 others reacted to this

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Brass Cannon    24,891

Brass Cannon
Posted
12 minutes ago, Aaron said:

Wow! What a night! What a game! What a crowd! Place was nearly full (5,450 was announced crowd which was 6th largest ever and largest ever for a tourney game I believe) and completely electric. I like to move around each half and sit on whichever side IU is trying to score on. I manged to do that tonight but finding a seat was tough which is a rarity at Armstrong which is a huge stadium by college soccer standards (6,500 capacity). It is the second largest crowd I have seen by far exceeded only by the sellout in early 2013 where we lost to UCLA in OT. There were plenty of people standing above bleachers on main side and along fence by field as well. Only vacant seats were small scraps of empty seats on main side and maybe first couple rows of bleachers on student side. Percentage wise is was probably as full as IU Duke game Wednesday and traffic leaving game was quite heavy around stadium which is a rarity for soccer.    

Onto the game. First off I may have underrated MSU in my power rankings early today and think they belong well inside top 10 now. Besides Maryland and Notre Dame the only team we have played on completely equal footing talent wise that can match us pound for pound. It was clear the first 10 minutes we were shell shocked by the massive step up in competition from first 2 tourney games and gave up the goal. We then asserted ourselves rest of half and missed several great chances. In 2nd half we continued to press and finally got the equalizer on a strange corner and I am still not sure how it deflected in. After we scored MSU pretty much dominated the rest of the game and had all the chances and we were probably lucky to get to PK's.

In PK's I am still not sure if benching Caulfield for Muse in PK's against Wiscy was completely stupid or completely brilliant and will never know which it is. With the performance Muse had tonight it looks completely dumb but you could argue if MSU had footage of him trying to stop Wiscy's PK's they may have known his tendencies better and had better luck against him. As for us we actually did a great job taking our PK's for most part. 

I don't necessarily think we deserved to advance but given how many heartbreaking OT and PK losses we have taken in postseason last few years the soccer gods owed us one and they delivered. I congratulate MSU for a great season but also think they have enough sports that are uber successful and succeeding big time with this year (Basketball, Football, Volleyball to name a few) across their department versus IU who is having a terrible year sports wise in the major sports save for soccer so on that logic we deserve it more than them but you must earn it and glad we did.

The scene after Muse saved the final PK was the best I have seen at the stadium. The entire Hoosier Army rushed the field and mobbed the team on the sideline and many people in the crowd stayed for a few minutes and some even longer. I half considered rushing the field myself but decided I was to old for that being almost 10 years out of college. I did go down to the fence line for the PK's and walked around it very slowly for the next 30 minutes to take in the atmosphere as everyone celebrated. I managed to get to the exit of the field where the players go to the locker room which they did 15-20 minutes later. The team was so elated and excited and it was awesome to see their faces as they walked in gradually a couple at a time. What stuck out was when Lillard half jokingly said to Panchot 'we knew we had it the whole time' and the few people around laughed. Shortly after Swartz jumped on someone and hugged them (I'm assuming his dad or another male family member) really hard and almost knocked them over. Seeing the smiles on the teams faces as they walked to locker room was maybe the coolest moment of the night that had many awesome moments.

Overall this was by far the greatest game I have witnessed at Armstrong and very glad I went. I was at the elite matchup in 1997 when we beat USF 6-0 to go to College Cup but was barely 10 years old and have no memory of it except we won easily 6-0. I don't remember the goals, the crowd or the atmosphere in the slightest so glad I got a second chance to see IU advance to the College Cup 20 years later where I will fully remember the great memories for the rest of my life.

Back to watching on TV Friday night for first time since PSU in first game of Big Ten Tourney but am all set to go Sunday if we win as long as weather is decent (Southwest is awesome with their no change fees and free cancellations allowing you to book way in advance and use credit within next year for a different time if IU does not make it and I fly plenty). 

Go Hoosiers! I am so elated right now!      

   

        

My wife and I were at the UCLA game also. Solidified my hate for Golden goal

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LamarCheeks    19,256

LamarCheeks
Posted
10 hours ago, HoosierAloha said:

It appears we learned from that PK debacle against Wiscy. I'll trade a B1G tourney title for a natty!!!


Sent from my iPhone using BtownBanners

I still don't understand changing keepers against Bucky. But as you wrote, getting No. 9 is more important than getting No. 13. 

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HoosierAloha    30,068

HoosierAloha
Posted
I still don't understand changing keepers against Bucky. But as you wrote, getting No. 9 is more important than getting No. 13. 

I'm not sure the exact reason coach Yeagley gave but I could see a few reasons. It was a rainy day, get a fresh keeper in that can move better. He's don't it in the past, maybe the backup keep watches film or studies tendencies? More experience?

Muse was money on PKs though


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Aaron    4,294

Aaron
Posted
59 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

Everybody remember to cheer for Fordham to upset UNC. For any number of reasons.  

Are we sure this is what we want? Sometimes having to take on Cinderella is worse than taking on a heavy weight. You are probably right you would rather play Fordham but at the same time we have not played enough teams at the top of college soccer (only top level teams we have played are ND, MSU and Maryland) which I think is part of why we came out so slow last night. To step back and have to play an inferior Fordham team may give us same issue of being shell shocked first few minutes if we make championship against Wake, Akron or Stanford who are all top 5 teams in my mind (we are as well). 

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