In their final home game of the 2014 season, despite the match ending in a 2-2 draw, the Wisconsin men’s soccer team might have put in their best performance of the season against one of the nation’s best teams.

The Badgers (3-10-3 overall, 0-6-1 Big Ten) had a tough matchup Saturday night against No. 2 ranked Indiana (11-2-4 overall, 3-2-2 Big Ten), but they pushed them with intensity and physicality for all 120 minutes of the double overtime match.

The Badgers were the first team on the board after freshman forward Tom Barlow was tackled in the box in the 37th minute, setting up a penalty kick for junior midfielder Drew Conner. Conner found no issue in getting the penalty kick to the back of the net.

It looked as if Wisconsin would carry a 1-0 lead into the second half, but unfortunately for the Badgers, Indiana found a way to score off a corner kick with just nine seconds left to play. The goal was a big setback for the Badgers, but UW head coach John Trask saw the tied game as a blessing in disguise.

“It’s unfortunate we gave up that goal before halftime, but I think for us, if we would have gone into halftime up 1-0, I am not so sure that would have been the best thing for us,” Trask said. “I think with the nature of soccer, if we had been up a goal, they might have came out storming and we would have gotten caught on our heels.”

In the second half, Indiana’s Tanner Thompson broke the tie in the 64th minute after showing off some incredible foot skills, weaving his way into open space and firing a shot to the far post and just into the back of the net.

Eight minutes later, it was Badger’s senior forward Jacob Brindle who came up big for the team, blasting it into the back of the net off a cross by junior defender Adam Lauko. The goal, Brindle’s third of the year, could not have been more timely for the senior in his final game at McClimon Soccer Complex.

“Lauko made a great move to beat the kid on the end line and I was able to redirect it into the goal,” Brindle said. “I just wanted to enjoy my last time out on this field, and obviously getting a goal was a great way to do that.”

While Brindle’s goal was huge for the Badgers and shifted the momentum for the team, it was an unlikely contribution that helped the Badgers hang tough against an intense, strong Indiana team.

Freshman midfielder Alex Masbruch played his first significant minutes of the season in a match against arguably the best team in the nation. But with the way he played, Masbruch looked as if he had been playing all season long.

Trask explained that he has always believed in Masbruch, but he just needed a little more time to get settled in as a freshman.

“It was great to see him out there,” Trask said. “Sometimes the light comes on right away like with a Tom [Barlow] and a Mark [Segbers], and sometimes it takes a little bit more time for them to get settled. But there is no question that Alex’s performance tonight was Badger tough.”

What made Masbruch’s performance even more impressive is that he didn’t even think he was going to play in Saturday night’s match.

“I had no idea I was going to be playing this big of a role. I didn’t even think I was going to go in to be honest,” Masbruch said. “At this point we have nothing to lose, so I just knew I had to work as hard as I could.”

That mentality of having nothing to lose was in full effect in the final moments of the game, as with only 34 seconds remaining on the game clock, Wisconsin had a free kick just outside of the goal box. In an effort to go all in, Wisconsin sent redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Casey Beyers into the box, leaving their own goal wide open with a good chunk of time still left to play.

The move didn’t get Wisconsin the game-winning goal, but luckily for the Badgers, Indiana couldn’t counter-attack and get what would have been a heartbreaking goal in the final 15 seconds of the match.

“I just thought that Casey is very fast anyway and can cover a lot of ground. I figured that if we sent him into the box, that he could get back in time,” Trask said. “I’m not normally a gimmicky guy, but at this point in the season, I felt like what the heck, let’s try it.”

The strong performance gives the Badgers some confidence as they approach the Big Ten tournament, and they will have their final shot at getting a conference win as they travel to Evanston, Illinois, Wednesday to take on Northwestern in their Big Ten finale.