Indy Eleven vs Racing Louisville - 05.01

Summary

- Opponent: Racing Louisville
- Location: Grand Park Event Center
- Attendance: -
- Final Score: 1-1 D

- Starting XI: Edwards, Satterfield, Kruer, Yu, Brecht, Johnson, Mills, Guthrie, Jodoin, Sochaki, Boyd

- Substitution: Chatterton 72' (Satterfield); May 72' (Sochaki); Dardano 88' (Guthrie)

- Unused: Reason, Adam, Chong, Gillespie, Hamm, Kikuchi

- Scoring Summary:
LOU - Gibson 55' (assist Jones)
IND - Sochaki 65' (unassisted)

- Bookings:

LOU - Snyder 70' (Yellow)

- Referee: Rachel Glago

Thoughts and Opinions

I said coming into the year that there might be games where I'm not as detailed in my articles. While I don't like that it was this game for the Indy Women versus Racing Louisville to start the W-League season, it was either go to the game or go to my kid's Senior Night for the track team. Nothing against Indy, but my kid's more important. However, thanks to the ISC Sports Network and Greg Rakestraw, I was able to watch the game a day late.

I'm not sure how the other two teams in the Valley Division are going to look this year, but if history holds true to form, it will likely be Indy or Racing that will be in contention for representing the Division in the USL W-League playoffs. As such, a 1-1 draw doesn't necessarily hurt either team just yet, Coach Kim's post-game comments felt true to me. Indy controlled the game enough from all aspects to have been able to get the win, so while a draw doesn't entirely feel like a loss, the full three points was definitely there for the taking. Indy had a 15 shot to 3 advantage over the visitors from Louisville, with 7 of those 15 shots being on target, but they just couldn't find more than the one goal. 

After Indy went down a goal kind of against the run of play, it was good to see them come back and get their own goal to at least salvage the point. Much like their male counterparts last weekend against Sporting JAX, if they had been a bit more clinical around goal, this would have been a completely different game and discussion. 

Indy probably did deserve to get the win, but they'll get two more chances since the miniscule four-team Valley Division means that Indy plays each team 3 times. This year's team is going to be the definition of "familiarity breeds contempt" because there just won't be that many teams to spread the anger around. Indy return to action this weekend when the play Toledo Villa, the newcomers to the Valley Division.

Game Beckons Game Ball

I thought that several players had good games, notably goal scorer Sochacki, midfielder Johnson, and defender Kruer, but it was Jodoin who was the player that you couldn't avoid noticing. She had a good game, including 33% of Indy's shots. So she edges her teammates for the GBGB.