Gorman: game close despite 3-0 final score

By DARREN STEELE
Collegian Staff Writer

Going into Sunday's NCAA Elite Eight matchup against defending national champion Indiana, the Penn State men's soccer team had suffered only three losses all year.

Two of those three losses were attributed to the Hoosiers. And after this weekend, to their dismay, the Nittany Lions can add another loss to Indiana.

The Lions' (19-4-1) search for a national championship came to an end Sunday as Penn State fell 3-0 to their conference rivals at Bill Armstrong Stadium in Bloomington, Ind.

The Lions and the Hoosiers battled to a scoreless first half after each team had chances to put it past the pipes.

"During the first half we thought we had better chances than they did," Penn State assistant coach Kevin Doyle said.

Those chances were unable to light up the scoreboard for the Lions, but thanks to a stiff defense, the Hoosiers were left shaking their heads as well.

The second half started with what was possibly Penn State's best chance of the game. Senior Blake Novotny was able to work the ball into Indiana territory, where he passed the ball to teammate Andy Thompson. The senior defender could have put the Lions up by one as his kick beat Hoosiers goalkeeper T.J. Hannig, but the shot ricocheted off Indiana sweeper Nick Garcia, who had made his way behind Hannig.

"It was nowhere near a 3-0 game," Penn State coach Barry Gorman said. "If that shot had gone, in the second half it would have been a different game."

Thompson's shot was one of many shots the Lions could not pound into the net.

"Obviously if you don't score goals you won't win games," Doyle said. "It's not so much that that let us down, but allowed Indiana to win."

The Hoosiers did not wait long to respond to the Lions' missed opportunity. They struck first blood 2:59 into the second half, as junior forward Matt Fundenberger was on the receiving end of a throw-in pass. Fundenberger worked the ball upfield to Hoosiers freshman Pat Noonan. The Indiana forward was able to head the ball past Lions goalkeeper Whit Gibson.

The scoreboard read 1-0 for only a few minutes as Indiana's offense exploded for two more goals in a matter of minutes. All-Big Ten selection Alexsey Korol was a major contributor to the cause as he scored the next two Hoosiers goals. Assisting Korol were Noonan and senior Yuri Lavrinenko.

"The time between the second and third goals were so close," Doyle said. "There were really no changes we could make."

"The parody is such that on any given day people are going to get beat," Gorman said. "On that day it wasn't meant to be."

The Lions inability to score was something the team had hoped to work on before getting to a point where it would eventually hurt them. The team and coaches had pointed to the problem for most of the season. As it turned out, it was a problem that they couldn't fix in time.

"The big difference was that Indiana had a kid that could put things in the back of the net," Gorman said. "We don't have that right now."

Indiana will move on to the Final Four to play UCLA, Dec. 10 in Charlotte, N.C., in hopes of eventually defending its national title. If the Hoosiers win, it would be the fifth national title captured by an Indiana squad coached by Jerry Yeagley.