The Wisconsin men’s soccer team took the field in State College, Penn. on Saturday with the promise that a win would get it a No. 3 seed in the upcoming Big Ten tournament. The Badgers went into two overtimes with Penn State and pulled out a win in the second overtime with a goal in that second extra period for a 1-0 win.
The game started unusually well for the Badgers who are not known for their shot quantity, usually taking fewer than five shots in a half. Wisconsin started the game with four shots in the first 17 minutes, holding off the Nittany Lions and keeping them at zero shots in the same time period. The more impressive statistic is that the Badgers got all four of these shots from different players, where junior midfielder Tomislav Zadro usually takes the bulk of those shots, he took just one of the four. The other Badgers to take shots in the first half were sophomore midfielder Nick Janus, sophomore forward Chris Prince, sophomore defender Trevor Wheeler, freshman midfielder David Caban and senior forward Josh Thiermann. The six Badgers to take shots is the most variety they have had in one half all season. But still, none of these shots yielded goals, and the Badgers ended the half in control, but tied with PSU 0-0.
UW came out for the second half hungry for a goal. The pressure started right away as Zadro took two corner kicks in the first four minutes of the second half, and before the first eight minutes of the second half was over the Badgers tallied two more shots as well, coming off the feet of sophomore midfielder Ryan Buda and Zadro. It took the Nittany Lions until the 54th minute to finally get a shot in the second half, coming from freshman defender Owen Griffith. The Badgers ended the second half with nine total shots, fourteen for the game, but still no goals. They had a good chance to get one at the end of regulation, when sophomore defender Paul Yonga had a header shot in the 90th minute, but it sailed wide of the goal.
When the first overtime started Penn State went on the offensive and stayed that way for the entirety of the first overtime, finally beating the Badgers in shots, but the UW defense did a good job to block two of the PSU shots, and the first overtime ended the way the first two regulation periods did, tied 0-0.
In the second overtime period the Nittany Lions recorded the first shot, but to no avail, and PSU would make a costly mistake later in the period. Junior midfielder Tomislav Zadro was fouled in the box, and he was awarded a penalty kick. Zadro nailed the shot for his sixth goal and second game winner of the season, giving Wisconsin the 1-0 victory.
UWBadgers.com contributed to this report.
