Indiana University Athletics
Big Ten Tournament Diary: John Michael Hayden
11/4/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Nov. 4, 2006
Indiana took one step closer to its 11th Big Ten Tournament title with a 1-0 win over Penn State on Friday, Nov. 3, in the semifinals. The Hoosiers will face Ohio State in the championship game on Sunday, Nov. 5, at noon. Senior midfielder John Michael Hayden, who was recognized as a first team All-Big Ten selection, sat down with IUHOOSIERS.com to talk about the tournament.
On Thursday morning, we did a walk through with assistant coach Phil Presser. We had some fun and played some old school Gertie games, which is what we call our practice drills. We played all of the classes (seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen) against each other, which was a lot of fun. After practice I went to class. I had just one class, sociology, which was interesting. We left for Columbus at 1:30. It was a good bus ride, we watched movies on the way. Once we arrived at the hotel, we got ready for the Big Ten banquet. The food was great, and some of the guys were honored, including myself, which was good. It felt great to win, I definitely wasn't expecting it. After we went back to the room, my roommate Josh Tudela and I watched some football to close out the evening before going to bed.
Friday, we woke up, had breakfast and started getting ready for the game. We had a walk through at the field in the morning. We also had a meeting with the coaches, and talked about the Penn State players that we needed to shut down, as well as the things that we needed to do and execute during the game. We won, so obviously we did some of those things.
We had lost three times to Penn State, so we were out for revenge last night, and we got it. It was nice to come out on top.
Saturday is a day off from competition. We have a walk through in the morning, but we plan to just hang out at the hotel. Our coaches had told us that if we won we could go to the movies, so I think a bunch of the guys are going to do that. My parents are here, so I'll probably spend some time with them, maybe go to the mall.
