The Wisconsin women’s soccer team captured its first Big Ten win Sunday afternoon when it defeated Indiana 3-2 in a thrilling fashion.

With the Badgers leading 2-0, the Hoosiers’ Devon Beach scored on a diving header from teammate Carly Samp in the 76th minute, then three minutes later, Beach returned the favor by finding Samp cutting for another goal in the upper right corner of the net.

“It’s always nerve-racking when you go up 2-0 since everyone says that it’s the most dangerous lead, but we knew we could pull it out,” sophomore forward Laurie Nosbusch said.

Head coach Paula Wilkins pointed to the need for sharper details and lack of pressure on the ball as determining factors that allowed Indiana to get back into the game.

“You have to give credit to Indiana — they came back from being two goals down,” Wilkins said. “But I’m excited to see my young group respond and not cave in after giving those two goals up.”

Wisconsin responded with just under three minutes to play when Nosbusch recorded her third goal of the day on a rebound from freshman Monica Lam-Feist’s shot that deflected off the IU goalkeeper. Despite the hat trick, Nosbusch remained humble after the game.

“I scored three goals, but two were rebounds and one was a sweet pass, so it’s not like I did anything,” Nosbusch said.

According to Nosbusch, the team has to continue to tighten up defensively on containing crosses from the flanks, but she is excited about the team’s outlook for the rest of the season. Nosbusch also said the Badgers should get some big wins this year and the players are actually expecting to play well and win in the Big Ten.

“A lot of teams will play easy [nonconference] teams to get their confidence up, but we went out to California and played some of the fastest, most technical, gifted players in the nation,” Nosbusch said. “And now we are ready for the speed of play in the Big Ten.”

The Badgers held on to win 3-2 despite fighting heavy rain in the second half.

“[When it started to rain] we asked ourselves, ‘Oh what else could happen to us this season,’ but I don’t think it distracted us too badly,” Nosbusch said.

The team had only one shot on goal and was fortunate to head into the half tied 0-0 because Indiana had many chances on which they were not able to capitalize. According to Nosbusch, senior Whitney Owusu and freshman Lindsay Johnson’s strong defense and redshirt sophomore Michele Dalton’s key saves in the goal allowed UW to enter halftime tied.

“[At halftime], I challenged them because they had nine shots and we had one,” Wilkins said. “I challenged their mentality and their attitude, and they rose to the challenge.”

Wilkins said the freshmen have been stepping up and becoming more comfortable with their roles as contributing members of the team.

“[Freshman midfielder Lindsey Hamann] has been doing better and better,” Wilkins said. “We talk to our players all of the time about earning their right to play during practice and Lindsey has dine a great job of raising her level of play in practice to prove to me that she is one of the competitive kids. She has gotten better and better each game and really gained some confidence.”

Wilkins noted this was the first game where the team scored goals while the ball was in play. All other goals this season have come off of set, dead ball plays, such as free kicks and corner kicks.

Wilkins acknowledged that everyone wants to win the Big Ten and all of the teams and coaches know each other because everyone is competing for the same championship.