SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The Fighting Irish men’s soccer team battled No. 4 Indiana for 90 minutes but came up just short, falling to the Hoosiers by a final of 1-0. The loss is Notre Dame’s first defeat of the season.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Irish started brightly against Hoosiers, putting early pressure on the Indiana back line with three shots in the opening 10 minutes of play.
The Hoosiers then settled into the contest and scored the breakthrough goal in the 35th minute off a shot from Collins Oduro to take a 1-0 lead to the intermission.
Notre Dame went toe-to-toe with the Hoosiers over the final 45 minutes of the match, controlling play for large stretches of the action, nearly leveling the score on numerous occasions.
KK Baffour unleashed a strike from well outside the area in the 48th minute but the effort fizzed just wide of the far post.
Then in the 71st minute the Irish nearly earned a penalty, as Nico Bartlett went down in the box, prompting a second look from VAR but the ref deemed the contact to not be the level of a penalty.
Seven minutes later a Nolan Spicer effort was blocked to the feet of Sebastian Green, who sent his shot just wide of the far post.
The last great chance for Notre Dame came in the 82nd minute. Spicer was fouled at the top of the box setting up a dangerous free kick for the Irish. Mitch Ferguson tried to bend his effort inside the far post but his shot went just wide, allowing the Hoosiers to escape with the 1-0 win.
McFARLAND FAMILY MEN’S HEAD SOCCER COACH CHAD RILEY’S TAKE
On the match…
“Overall I think there were more positives than negatives. We always want to come away with a victory when we play very well. We had maybe one mistake in the first half that they were able to capitalize on and we created a couple of decent looks in the first half. Then in the second half we were excellent and should have brought the game back level and made it interesting.”
UP NEXT
The Irish head east to take on Pitt, as they open up ACC play at 7 p.m. ET on Friday, Sept. 12. The match will air on ACCN.
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