Indy Eleven vs Lexington SC - 13.09

Summary

- Opponent: Lexington SC
- Location: Carroll Stadium
- Attendance: 8,745
- Final Score: 3-1 W

- Starting XI: Dick, Quinn (C), Herbert, Craig, Neidlinger, Blake, Lindley, O'Brien, J., Mesanvi, Rendon, Kizza

- Substitution: Barry 55' (Kizza); Sing 66' (Mesanvi); Mitrano 78' (Barry); Rasheed 79' (Neidlinger)

- Unused: Charles-Cook, Okello, Williams

- Scoring Summary:
IND - Rendon 13' (assist Kizza)
LEX - Molloy 51' (assist Ferri)
IND - O'Brien 71' (assist Blake)
IND - Sing 76' (assist Quinn)

- Bookings:

LEX - Brown 3' (RED)
IND - Rendon 4' (Yellow)
LEX - Zenque 32' (Yellow)
LEX - Goodrum 80' (Yellow)
IND - Quinn 90' (Yellow)

- Referee: Luis Diego Arroyo (& Braeden Frey)

- Adage goals: None.
- Points Lost from Winning Position (Year To Date): 8

Thoughts and Opinions

Photo: Matt Schlotzhauer

At some point, Indy Eleven may enact a Ring of Honor for the club. When that happens, I have some thoughts on who should be included in it. Brad Ring is at the top of the list for me. After that, Ayoze, Zayed, Busch, and Smart have legit arguments to be in that initial class. There are three players from the current team that may not be in the first Ring of Honor announcement (but probably should), but it would just be a matter of time for them to make their way to that honor as far as I'm concerned. Blake, Quinn, and Lindley have cemented themselves into that discussion. With his appearance tonight, Lindley became the official leader in Games Played for the team, and will become the leader in Games Started and Minutes Played if/when he plays against Rhode Island next week. I had some objections to the way McAuley utilized Lindley in the early part of last year, otherwise those records would have already been Cam's. As far as I'm concerned, he has as much of an argument to the first Ring of Honor group as those other guys. They have already, but by the time they finish their careers in Indy, Blake, Lindley, and Quinn will have fully cemented their places as the best players to have been a part of the Indy franchise and two of the three got assists on the night.

When you're struggling to get wins, like Lexington has struggled to do this season, the last thing you need to do is put yourself in a position to make that harder. Lexington did just that when Brown took offense to Rendon putting a ball into Brown's chest when he was on the ground, and Brown did his version of Manny Pacquiao and threw a left jab that firmly caught Rendon in the jaw. The red card was immediate and deserved and Lexington found themselves a man down in just the 3rd minute of the game. Rendon picked up his own yellow card for his involvement in the altercation, but 87-minutes with a man-advantage is a difficult ask. As a result, Lexington found themselves on the wrong side of a 3-1 loss with an Josh O'Brien 71st-minute winner.

Indy's first goal came from Herbert's ability to blast headers back from whence they game. Turns out his ability to win balls in the air can result to instant offense. In the 13th minute, he did that once again and his ball found Kizza in the middle of the field. Kizza immediately turned and went straight at the Lexington defense. A well-placed ball through the line to an on-rushing Rendon who put the ball over Semmle for the early Indy lead. Lexington is a team that possesses the ball really well, so the early goal from Indy gave them an ability to dictate the game more. While Indy still conceded some possession because Indy's going to Indy, but they're attacks were more effective with the man advantage.

For I think the first time in team history, just before the 40th minute of the game, referee Arroyo came up limping as he chased down an attack from Indy. As both teams sprinted towards the Lexington goal, you can see Arroyo do the universal "just pulled a hammy" stutter step and must have signaled in the earpiece that he was done for the game. Arroyo gingerly walked to the sideline where he and fourth official Braeden Frey swapped the required electrical gear as Frey became the lead official and Arroyo took over the fourth official duties. The referee stoppage and the red card dust-up resulted in 6 minutes of stoppage time, but Rendon's early goal was the extent of the scoring as the teams went into the halftime locker room with Indy's 1-goal lead. 

Lexington didn't have any official shots on target in the first half, but they did rattle the woodwork early in the game and, of course, held the possession advantage despite their man disadvantage. Indy, with the man advantage, did make more use of their possession with a 0.79 xG vs 0.15 for LEX. Indy was also to adjust their style of play enough that they were significantly less than their average for long passes. That they weren't up by more than the one goal was really the only downside to the first half for the home team.

Then Molloy came out of the locker room and found a 51st minute banger from long distance that had so much swerve on it that Dick went one way and the ball went the other way into the right side of the goal. Suddenly, Indy's obvious win because of their early goal and man advantage looked tenuous. Lexington's ability to hold possession while also knowing that they would also fully bunker late if they could keep the score tied to get a draw on the road with a man down meant that Indy's trend of losing points from winning positions was again in play.

Yet a 5-minute stretch gave Indy the cushion they needed to feel better about the performance and the result. In the 71st minute, a Blake cross missed Sing's head, but O'Brien latched onto the ball as it hit the ground and redirected it into the Lexington goal restoring Indy's lead. Five minutes later, Sing did get his head to a cross, this time from Quinn and Indy had their insurance goal to make the final 15-minutes nervy, but not as concerning as Indy's other games with just a one-goal lead. As Indy saw out the game with a 2-goal differential (and a 2.64 xG to 0.29 advantage) to make the result more closely match what you hope to get when a team has a man advantage for 87 minutes. 

With the win, Indy extend their league home undefeated league streak to 8 games and bumping the team up to 5th place in the table with game(s) in hand on the teams ahead of them. While people might not call their style of play "pretty," the team is getting results and would be even further up the table if they hadn't given up some late goals. Thinking about the season, it feels like the season has gone worse than what their timeline (in league games) shows. Two losses in 9 games is a very respectable start to the season, possession stats be damned. We're almost 1/3 of the way through the league season, but at this point, the team is getting positive results out of games at the 3rd highest rate in team history (69.23%) behind only the 2016 team (81.08%) and the 2019 season (72.50%), arguably the two most successful seasons in the team's history in two different leagues. 

Louisville lost tonight for their first 3 game losing streak in almost 3 years, Tampa Bay is undefeated, and the historically perennial doormat Miami is sitting in 4th place in the table. It's already been a weird season and there is a lot still to go where things can get even weirder, but Indy is finding ways to get positive results out of games even if they aren't the full points that they probably should have at this point. 

Indy look to keep their undefeated streak going next weekend when they face Rhode Island at Carroll Stadium in the second game of the current 3-game homestand. 

The Game Beckons Game Ball

Photo: Matt Schlotzhauer

Rendon has 7 goals through 12 games in all competitions. It's crazy to think that just a couple of seasons ago he was the League One Defender of the Year, and now he has ~1/3 of Indy's goals for the season and probably should have more. He's playing so well right now that it's almost expected to the point that despite being near the top of the league in goals scored and getting tonight's opening goal, he wasn't the player talking to Rakestraw and Ring after the game. Because I don't want to disregard the kind of heater he's on right now, Rendon gets tonight's GBGB.