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The Hoosiers are back in a familiar place. Indiana is set to play in their fourth College Cup Final in six years looking for their ninth national championship. The Hoosiers will pair up against Syracuse on Monday in order to crown the 2022 champion. The game will be broadcasted at 6 p.m. EST on ESPNU taking place in Cary, North Carolina.
Indiana enters Monday with a 14-4-6 record after finishing fourth place in the Big Ten. The Hoosiers' path to the College Cup Final came by taking down No. 20 Saint Louis, Marshall, No. 12 UNC Greensboro, and most recently Pittsburgh with a 2-0 win in the semi-finals.
The Hoosiers earned their trip to the final with two first-half goals against Pittsburgh. Senior Ryan Wittenbrink opened up the scoring with a penalty in the thirteenth minute to give the Hoosiers an early lead. Sophomore Tommy Mihalic scored his seventh goal of the year with a turnaround goal in the final seconds of the first half.
Defensively, Indiana has been as good as it gets. JT Harms and the Hoosiers have not conceded a goal in their four tournament games, only the seventh time that has happened in tournament history. Harms has been perfect in every game and has saved a combined nine shots in those four games.
Indiana’s back line has been the other half of their defensive success. Brett Bebej, Joey Maher, Daniel Munie, and Nyk Sessock all took part in the win against Pittsburgh closing in on the Panther's attack all night. With the combination of Harms and the back four, head coach Todd Yeagley talked after the Pittsburgh win about this defense being one of the keys in Indiana’s tournament run.
“You have to be able to have a lot of switches and be able to go even,” Yeagley said. “You have to have the players in the back line to go do that. We train defending a lot and we're not shy in saying that…When I look out there I see that the same back line that played in the last championship game, they're better. They are better individually and I think they are better collectively. That's what gets me excited for what's ahead on Monday.”
On the other side, this is just the second College Cup appearance for Syracuse as they search for their first national championship in program history. To reach the College Cup, Syracuse defeated Penn, No. 14 Cornell, Vermont and Creighton in a 3-2 win on Friday night.
Against Creighton, Senior defender Christian Curti scored the lone goal of the first half taking a 1-0. A highly intense back-and-forth second half put both teams on the brink of a championship appearance as both teams were tied 2-2 in the final ten minutes of the match. With less than five minutes left, senior forward Levonte Johnson put one in the back of the net to give his team a trip to the championship game.
Ahead of their match on Monday, Yeagley has gotten the chance to look deeper into Syracuse. This Syracuse team has gotten a lot more experience in the past two years adding 10 different transfers. This team has gotten to the final for a reason and the entire Indiana team knows that.
“One they have some experience,” Yeagley said. “They are a big team, they’re physical in the right places. They have some difference makers starting up top, the two strikers have been an absolute handful all year…They are just a team you look at and there's a reason why they’ve won 18 games. They are very balanced, they are good and there's a lot of belief within their team. It's going to be a great challenge.”
Monday’s final will be the first time that both of these teams have ever met on the pitch but both teams are looking for one thing, to add a championship start next to their name. The Hoosiers are on the quest for number nine and Syracuse is looking for their first ever as they will kick off on Monday night at WakeMed Soccer Park.
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