Indiana Plays To 1-1 Draw With Louisville To Open 2016
Indiana ran into a familiar friend Friday night—overtime.
The Hoosiers played seven overtime games in 2015, going 1-0-6 in those contests. They wasted no time getting back to playing extra soccer, tying Louisville 1-1 in regulation and holding that score through the double overtime.
"I'm encouraged," head coach Amy Berbary said. "I think the team is in a good place mentally. It would have helped us a little bit if we could finally get a win on this field, but again, we didn't lose. We're pretty positive, and I thought we had quite a few chances in front of goal."
Junior Annelie Leitner, who started at one of the forward spots despite a past history as a defender, put the Hoosiers on the board in the fourth minute off a deflected ball in the box for her third career goal.
It proved to be the lone Hoosier score.
"You take the chance you have," Leitner said, shying away from credit. "If you have one chance, you have to take that one chance. We had to do that probably in the second half a few (more) times."
IU mostly dominated possession early on and kept Louisville out of the attacking third until the second half when the Cardinals adjusted and began to take the Hoosiers out of their comfort zone.
Louisville picked up an equalizer in the 76th minute of the match in uncharacteristic form thanks to a long ball played in by the keeper. A goal kick from Cardinal goalie Taylor Bucklin took a large bounce just beyond the midfield and floated just over senior defender Marissa Borschke's head.
Louisville's Callie McKinney put a touch on the ball to get it to Allison Whitfield's foot for a chip in from about 15 yards out to tie the game up. It was a breakthrough goal that Berbary said could have come earlier had it not been for a few missed chances by other Cardinal attackers.
"It's a shame we too that bad bounce on the goal when it got through," Berbary said, "but they had a number of chances that they just missed, too. Point blank ones. We've got to tighten up back there."
The goal spoiled an otherwise strong first outing from true freshman goalkeeper Sarah Hommedieu. She registered three saves in the match, giving up just the one score.
The decision to started Hommedieu came at the last minute, Berbary said. She notified Hommedieu and true freshman goalie Bristal Hadley-Mautino who would be starting the morning of the match.
"She did well," Berbary said. "You know, we're not sure what we're going to do yet on Sunday (against Western Michigan). We knew Louisville was probably going to serve quite a few balls in the air. That's one of Sarah's strengths right now."
Indiana came close to picking up Hommedieu a debut win in each of the overtime periods.
Freshman Macy Miller sent a rocket off the crossbar that would have won the game in the 93rd minute if it was a few inches shorter shortly before Borschke nearly redeemed her defense's one costly mistake by netting a goal of her own only to see her effort go just wide of the frame a few minutes later.
Although having to go through another overtime without a win certainly brought up frustrating memories from last season, Berbary walked away pleased.
"We're still one of the 322 teams that are undefeated tonight," she said, "so I'm proud of that."
UP NEXT: Indiana stays at home for a 1 p.m. Sunday match against Western Michigan. Berbary said after Louisville that she was concerned with her team's cramping late in the match and would take Saturday easy before the second game of the season.