The Wisconsin men’s soccer team (0-1 Big Ten, 3-4-3 overall) clashes with No. 14 Indiana (2-0, 8-2-1) on Saturday in Bloomington in their first road game of the Big Ten season.
The Badgers look to get back to even in the conference in a big way after their home loss to Penn State last month. The Hoosiers have been historically dominant in Big Ten soccer, and this year is no exception. Led by sophomore forward Eriq Zavaleta, the Hoosiers attack has been very efficient. What has been most impressive, however, is the Hoosier defense. In 11 games this year they have only allowed five goals, while netting 16 of their own. The +11 goal differential stands out to UW head coach John Trask.
“Focus is huge against a team like Indiana,” said Trask. “They’ve got 16 goals for and five against. That’s a pretty outstanding number for a team at this time in the season.”
Since the Badgers have moved to a four-back formation on defense, they have only conceded more than one goal once – a double overtime loss to Marquette. That formation will be responsible for trying to keep Indiana out of the net. Freshman goaltender Chase Rau has the utmost confidence in his defense’s ability to stop Zavaleta and the Hoosier attack.
“We’re just going to play the game we’ve been playing. We’ve got strong defenders who can handle him,” said Rau. “They’ve played against players like this. We’re fully prepared at every defensive spot to do the job.”
This will be Rau’s first Big Ten road game, coming at a venue averaging over 2,000 spectators per contest. He shrugged off any notion of a hostile environment throwing him or any other Badgers off their game.
“They have a lot of fans, so there will definitely be some proud Hoosiers over there,” Rau said. “But nothing gets to my head and nothing bothers my player’s heads either,. We come out and we feed off the energy of the game. ”
Indiana has a knack for second half scoring. Of their 16 goals, 14 have come in the second half against worn down defenses.
Junior forward Chris Prince leads the Badgers with 7 points (2 goals, 3 assists). He has never lost to Indiana, and he hopes that the Badgers can get back on track by not allowing the Hoosiers to take advantage of a tired Badger team.
“We’re a pretty fit team, we know how to play them. I’ve played against much of their team my whole life,” said Prince. “I think we know what to expect, we’re going to go in there and hopefully get a win.”
