They had to beat a team with two consecutive national championships and an incredible amount of history on its side of the pitch, but the Penn State men's soccer team won its third Big Ten tournament title yesterday in a 1-0 victory over Indiana in Evanston, Ill.

Freshman forward Jason Yeisley scored the game winner in the 87th minute to give the Nittany Lions (12-6-2, 8-0 Big Ten) an automatic NCAA tournament berth, a ninth consecutive win and a completely undefeated Big Ten season.

On a counter attack, senior captain Brian Devlin fed junior forward Simon Omekanda, who Yeisley said made a "real nice move" to put the ball behind the Indiana (13-2-6, 3-2-3 Big Ten) defense. From about 20 yards out, Yeisley chipped the ball over Hoosiers goalkeeper Chris Munroe.

"I got a beautiful through ball, and somebody yelled 'shoot it,' " Yeisley said.

Munroe managed to get a hand on the ball, but not enough to prevent a razor-thin victory in a game during which Indiana put loads of pressure on the Lions' defense. The Hoosiers held the advantage in shots (18-7), shots on goal (9-2) and corner kicks (9-0).

Penn State men's soccer coach Barry Gorman said a quality opponent like Indiana is going to get its chances, and the attack Indiana put on would hopefully afford the Lions a breakaway opportunity to score.

But the Lions' defense played the role of team anchor in another game, especially goalkeeper Conrad Taylor -- the tournament defensive MVP, who Gorman said had to make a handful of acrobatic saves.

"He's a big-time player who comes up big in big games," Gorman said. "We were soaking up a lot of pressure."

Just as much of a factor was Lake Michigan, which caused swirling winds to sweep around the field at Northwestern's Leonard B. Thomas Athletic Complex. It worked against the Lions in the second half of the game, as it took away accuracy on long kicks downfield.

"The overall game was spoiled," Gorman said about the winds.

But they weren't enough to spoil the result for Penn State, a historically improbable feat, given that they'd lost every of five previous championship-round meetings with the Hoosiers, the latest in 2003 on penalty kicks.

Victory might have been even more historic given the Lions' previous win versus the Hoosiers on Sept. 30. Until yesterday, only two teams -- Evansville in 1985 and Creighton in 2000 -- had ever beaten Indiana twice in one season.

But Gorman said this was a different team and a different set of players that reached another goal in a process of achievements. They entered the tournament as Big Ten regular season champions, handing the Hoosiers its only loss of the season.

On Friday, Penn State defeated Michigan State, 2-0, in the semifinal round on goals made by Devlin and Omekanda to advance to the championship round.

Even though Yeisley, named tournament offensive MVP, said the September victory gave the Lions confidence to beat Indiana again, a Penn State victory wasn't forecast by many.

"Even though we won the Big Ten regular season championship, people still attached the expectation levels to Indiana," Gorman said. "These guys did what they had to in order to get the victory."