The University of Wisconsin men's soccer team had an abrupt and disappointing end to their season on Friday. The Badgers went into their second round match with the last-seeded Penn State Nittany Lions, a team off an upset of the second seeded Ohio State Buckeyes, with a chance to move on to the finals of the Big Ten Conference tournament. But on Friday in Ann Arbor (the University of Michigan played host to the tournament), the Badgers went down 1-0 to the Nittany Lions and now must await the judgement of the NCAA to see if they will, by some small chance, get a bid for the NCAA tournament.
The first half epitomized the downfall of the Badgers this season, that in their losses the Badgers were always out shot by a large margin. The first half of Fridays game against Penn State saw that theme revisited. Wisconsin allowed six shots before they were able to get one of their own, which came in the 17th minute from sophomore forward Nick Janus. The Badgers would concede the games only goal in the 29th minute when junior midfielder Vu Minh scored off a volley from 14 yards out.
The Nittany Lions shot the ball a total of 15 times during the first half. The Badgers' defense was constantly under pressure, as was sophomore goalkeeper Max Jentsch, who made four saves in the first half. In contrast, the PSU dealt with little adversity in the first half, giving up just one shot, not on goal, and four corner kicks. The first half ended 1-0, but an even more telling stat is that the Nittany Lions out-shot the Badgers by 14.
The second half began much like the first half, and the Nittany Lions quickly tallied four shots in the first ten minutes, while the Badgers got just one in the same time period, from junior midfielder Jerry Maddi. Wisconsin would get jut three more shots for the entirety of the game, none of which were on goal, while Penn State would add six more shots in that time period. The Badgers never even tested freshman goalie Andrew Wolverton. Give the Nittany Lions credit: they won two games in a row against teams who beat them in the regular season.
The Nittany Lions would lose to the top seeded-Northwestern Wildcats in Sunday afternoon's Big Ten Championship game. But they put up a fight dropping 2-1 to NU, who clinched its first-ever Big Ten Tournament title.
