Indiana University Athletics
Big Ten Tournament Diary - Brian Ackley
11/6/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Nov. 6, 2006
Sophomore forward Brian Ackley scored the game-winning goal for Indiana against Ohio State at the Big Ten Championships. Ackley leads the team with 17 points (6 goals, 5 assists) on the season. He sat down with IUHOOSIERS.com to talk about his tournament experience.
Saturday was an off day of the tournament. We woke up, got a light meal in, and went for a jog and a stretch. We played some five on two, and finishing games during walk through. We went back to the hotel, and had the option of going to a movie or hanging out at the hotel. Me and my roommate, Darren Yeagle, decided to take a nap and passed out before team meal. At night, everyone just hung low because we knew we had a big game the next day, so we wanted to rest up.
On Sunday morning, we got a wake up call, then went down and got a good breakfast in. After that, we went to our rooms to go pack, then had a team meeting. We talked about the tendencies of Ohio State. We had played them earlier in the year, so we talked about how they were big, fast, and physical. Coach (Mike Freitag) told us that it was going to be a battle. We know we can play with anyone in the country, and knew that we were going to have to battle Ohio State at its own game.
I felt really confident before the game. I think the whole team felt confident. No one was worried about anything. We had a good warm up, and everyone came out to play. We knew as soon as we stepped on the pitch and the whistle blew we would be ready to go.
The game was really physical. They're big boys. I'm pretty big myself (6-3), and they had a couple of guys who were 6-4 and 6-5 that towered over me. Their whole team is really big. I had heard they played a physical game, and they did. It wasn't anything nasty, they just get after the ball. I thought we matched their intensity really well. I thought we got on them and played a physical game also.
On the goal, Josh Tudela got a good foul. He got his body in front of the ball and he got taken out. Josh has been hitting free kicks well lately. I walked up to him and told him before he took the kick: just do your thing. You miss, I'll be right there. He hit a bomb from 30 yards out. It's funny how it worked out that way, I told him I'd be right there to put it in, and it just so happened that it happened like that.
We were up 1-0 late in the game, and they pushed some players forward. Naturally, we had to drop back. We didn't really want to, but it's a tendency of theirs. I thought we did really well, there was only one scare that we had, and Chay Cain came up big. I didn't see many opportunities that they had to make a threat on us. We did well defending as a team.
It felt great to win at the end of the game. I was really tired and couldn't celebrate too much, I was just trying to catch my breath, and went over and collapsed on the bench. I was dead tired, it was a hard fought match. For all the work that we put in this year, it was gratifying to have a win and a trophy to hold up to back up all the work that we've done. That was really nice.
