Oct. 20, 2002

Final Stats

The University of Illinois soccer team captured a much-needed 2-1 victory over Indiana on Sunday afternoon at Illinois Soccer Field. The Illini used a pair of second half goals to come from behind and improve to 7-8-0 overall and 3-5-0 in the Big Ten Conference. The win was important because it vaulted the Illini past Iowa and Northwestern and into eighth place in the Big Ten with just two conference games remaining. At the end of the regular season, the top eight teams will compete for the conference's automatic NCAA tournament bid in the Big Ten Tournament. Indiana fell to 8-5-2 overall and 4-3-2 in the conference.

The Hoosiers got on the board first on Shelly Gruszka's fifth goal of the season in the 39th minute. Indiana forward Jenny Mann launched a corner kick from the left side and into the middle of the box where Kristen Sprunger headed it towards Gruszka who directed it into the net for the score.

Meghan Kolze tied the game at 1-1 with a penalty kick goal in the 59th minute.

The score would remain 1-0 in favor of the Hoosiers until the 59th minute when the Illini were awarded a penalty kick after sophomore Tara Hurless was taken down inside the penalty box. Senior Meghan Kolze hammered home the PK to tie the game at one. It was Kolze's fourth goal of the season.

Just over one minute later, the Illini would strike again and take the lead for good. This time Hurless took a pass from Tiffani Walker, sprinted to the right side of the goal and beat the keeper from eight yards out to put the Illini up 2-1. It was Hurless' team leading 10th goal of the season.

Illinois head coach Janet Rayfield was impressed with Hurless' play all afternoon. " Tara Hurless played 90 minutes today and was pretty much going full force for all of them, which is great and is a step forward for her," said Rayfield.

The Illini were the aggressors for most of the day, firing 25 shots to Indiana's nine. Leisha Alcia was great in goal for the Illini stopping six shots and picking up the win. Shaunna Daugherty started at goalkeeper for Indiana and shutout the Illini in the first half. Kristin Pimlott replaced Daugherty in the second half and allowed the two Illinois goals while saving four shots.

The Orange and Blue improved their home record this season to 6-1-0 with the win. Rayfield attributes this impressive mark to the comfort and confidence that the team has on its home turf.

"I just think we're more confident at home," Rayfield said. "We know we can play good soccer on this field. We're comfortable with the type of style we like to play, which is to keep the ball on the ground. Some of the other surfaces maybe make that a little more difficult for us. But we're very comfortable playing here and so we play good soccer and as soon as we start playing good soccer we get more and more confident. Hopefully a game like today will give us some confidence to carry on the road to Iowa next weekend."

"The Big Ten season has been touch and go all season long, they've all been hard fought games," continued Rayfield. "I think maybe what we did today was we didn't panic when they scored, and we knew we were playing well and we knew we were doing things well and we tried to stick with that."

Up Next: The Illini travel to Iowa on Friday, Oct. 25 for a pivotal Big Ten matchup with the Hawkeyes. Start time is 7 p.m. Then on Sunday, Oct. 27 the Illini face Illinois State in Bloomington, Ill. at noon.