The Iowa women’s soccer team won its home-opener at the Iowa Soccer Complex, 2-1 over Southeast Missouri State on Sunday.
The Hawkeyes (2-0-0) scored in the seventh minute, when sophomore Katie Nasenbenny scored on a corner kick from senior Morgan Showalter.
“I think it was a classy finish early in the game,” head coach Ron Rainey said.
Nasenbenny found the back of the net for the second time on a penalty kick in the 45th minute.
Her shot was initially saved by Redhawk goalkeeper Ashton Aubuchon, but she wasn’t able to hang on and Nasenbenny was able to collect the rebound and score the game-winning goal.
“It was just a heads-up play, and it’s good to have her back,” Rainey said.
The two-score afternoon was a shot of redemption for Nasenbenny, who missed most of last season with an ACL injury after she started Iowa’s first two games.
“Last season was hard — it was unfortunate, but this season I have a chance to play and hopefully help out the team,” she said. “The goals were nice, but I don’t really think that it was a great overall performance.”
Nasenbenny and several other members of the team said they thought the team’s pace and effort weren’t as consistent as they should have been.
Still, Iowa’s victory was enough for senior goalkeeper Emily Moran to notch her place in the record books — she became the school’s all-time career win leader.
Sunday’s win was the 24th of her career.
“I don’t really look at that stuff,” Moran said. “The only reason I knew was because one of the girls was reading it on the bus yesterday. I think it’s more of a team thing than anything, and more of our team playing well together.”
The win was Iowa’s second of the season; the Hawkeyes beat DePaul, 3-0, on Aug. 19.
The Friday-to-Sunday games have been a tough transition for the team, Rainey said.
“Today, we weren’t as good as we wanted to be — mentally, we weren’t as sharp as we were on Friday,” he said. “When players go through college, the Friday-Sunday game is always a tough transition. It looked like an early season game.
“I hope we can learn from this and now improve on it as we go into practice next week.”
The Hawkeyes agreed that they didn’t play well, and Moran said everyone needs to focus on several things heading into the squad’s next game — on Friday at home against Western Illinois.
“We’re going to work on our mentality before games and getting ready,” she said. “We need to connect passes and work as a team. [Today] we played better in the second half, and I think we played a little slow compared with [the pace] we want to play at.
“We have to set the tone for ourselves and not let the other team set the tone for us.”
