The Indiana Hoosiers (4-3-4, 2-0-1) earned their second Big Ten win of the season with a 3-0 shutout of the Wisconsin Badgers (7-7-0, 1-2-0) Friday night.
UW forward Jed Hohlbein received a red card at 18:49 into the contest, leaving the Badgers a man down for the remainder of the evening. Indiana sophomore Pat Yates scored the game-winning goal for IU at 31:24. The goal turned out to be the only score Indiana needed as it breezed by UW in front of more than 1,600 spectators.
“[The ball] deflected off a couple people, and Drew Shinabarger ended up with it and played me through,” Yates said. “I just tried placing it back post, and it went in.”
Although the Hoosiers posted a shutout, they were impressed with the play of the host Badgers.
“We expected to see a good team, and we did see a good team,” Yates said. “They played very well, especially with a man down. They had great chances to score … I think that for a while there it was quite an even match.”
Both teams played a very physical brand of soccer. Two minutes after Hohlbein’s red card, an Indiana defender took down UW’s Nick Van Sicklen from behind, giving the Badgers a free kick. 32 fouls were called during the match, 19 of which on Indiana. IU’s Jordan Chirico and UW’s Aaron Hohlbein were each issued a yellow card during the game.
Not only did UW play shorthanded, the team also was without two of its captains, as Erol Goknur and Watson V. Prather sat out.
“We just tried to play hard, but against a good team like Indiana, when you’re a man down it’s hard to play a complete game,” UW’s Phil Doeh said. “The effort was there; we out-shot them seven to six. That shows, if we had an extra man to match them up evenly, what we could have done.”
Two minutes into the second half, a Doeh shot hit the right post, missing a chance to pull the Badgers within one goal. Minutes later, UW’s Aaron Hohlbein hit the crossbar, and David Martinez’s rebound shot deflected off of the left post.
“Just unlucky,” Doeh said about the unfortunate breaks for UW. “They had their shots that went in, we had our excellent chances, but it was just unlucky.”
UW ended the game with a flurry of shots but was unable to put the ball into the back of the net, as playing shorthanded proved detrimental to the Badgers’ attack.
“[The red card] changed the whole game. I wasn’t sure it was the right call,” UW head coach Jeff Rohrman said. “Obviously the college game is a physical game. I thought we were a little unfortunate to [have gotten] a red card there. If anything, I thought a yellow, but that was the hand we were dealt and I thought we handled it pretty well.”
The card was issued when Jed Hohlbein and an Indiana defender were running side by side down the field after a ball, and Hohlbein swung his right arm out, sending the IU player to the ground. It was a play that the referee decided warranted an ejection.
Although faced with adversity, the overall effort of the Badgers pleased Rohrman.
“We defended well. I thought we were going to be able to steal one or two at the end there,” he said. “Unfortunately, I think the thing that hurt us was giving up that second goal early in the second half. If we could have kept it 1-0 we could have stolen one. I was proud of the effort. The guys worked hard. We just have to take care of some of those little things and give ourselves a chance to win.”