Yeagley not fretting over Indiana’s College Cup heartbreak
Photo credit: Indiana men’s soccer
Disbelief. The Indiana Hoosiers could all but taste the national championship. But after 103 minutes, they watched Stanford celebrate a 1-0 win. The Hoosiers sunk to the pitch in disbelief.
IU ended the regular season undefeated. The Hoosiers fell short of the Big Ten championship via penalty kicks. And then their seventh goal they allowed all season came at the most inopportune time — the 103rd minute of the College Cup. In an instant, IU saw its semi-perfect season come to an end.
“It’s a tough one,” IU head coach Todd Yeagley said. “We said heading into the overtimes, make sure we play really safe. We learn from all different experiences throughout the year. We’ll learn from that. The overtime is tough. It’s so sudden. You don’t have a lot of time to react to that.”
Indiana dominated opponents this season. They outscored opponents 49-7. And in allowing just seven goals all season, goalkeeper Trey Muse ends with a 0.26 goals against average. After the quarterfinal round, a 1-1 draw vs. Michigan State, Coach Yeagley said that many of the team’s six draws throughout the campaign felt like losses. IU felt the sting of their first loss in the final match.
Statistically however, the 2017 Hoosiers rank among the school’s best. Muse’s 18 shutouts tied an IU record that John Putna set in 1979. IU earned its 19th College Cup appearance, an NCAA best. They join three other Indiana teams that allowed just one loss (1976: 18-1-1, 1983: 21-1-4, 1997: 23-1). Their streak of 24 unbeaten games now ranks second in the history books. Nine consecutive shutouts rank first. The list goes on and on.
With Sunday’s match, IU now appeared in 15 College Cup finals. The team won eight national championships. Which means seven teams, including 2017, fell short.
Thank you to the @HoosierArmy and the greatest fans in college soccer, not only for the support this weekend, but all season!#Q49 #GoIU ⚪️🔴 pic.twitter.com/O37q5JhqTr
— Indiana Men’s Soccer (@IUMensSoccer) December 10, 2017
As a young boy, Yeagley sat in the stands watching IU win and lose while his dad, Jerry Yeagley, coached. Yeagley experienced the heartbreak as a student-athlete playing in 1994, his senior season, as IU (23-3) fell to Virginia 1-0 in the national championship match. Yeagley sat speechless in the press box as a guest radio announcer in 1997 when the near-perfect Hoosiers (23-1) lost in triple sudden death overtime, 1-0 to UCLA. He knows the pain it brings. And now he’s experienced it as a coach.
“It’s difficult,” Yeagley said. “I think some of our best teams through the years haven’t been able to bring hardware, certainly the most coveted. If that’s all you evaluate your experience on then that’s a narrow way of looking at it. It’s our guys’ goal, but it doesn’t define it. They’ll be really proud of what they’ve done. It’s going to take a while to feel that, but I know they will.”
When asked what you say to the seniors that made a mark on the program, Francesco Moore said it was tough.
“There’s not really much to say other than, they left their mark on this program regardless of whether we won this game or not,” Moore said. “All that they’ve been able to accomplish over the past four years, and especially this year at the records we’ve broken, that we’ve set. It’s been an incredible year.”
IU will lose seniors Grant Lillard, Rashad Hyacenth and Josh Lipe-Melton. The rest of the Hoosiers will be back. And preparations for the 2018 season are just around the corner. There’s nothing like losing in the College Cup to inspire a team to get back on the pitch and start again.
Follow Kathryn on Twitter: @Katknapp99.
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