The Iowa women’s soccer team got off to the best start in school history by winning its first nine games, and it has begun to make its mark in the Big Ten.

The Hawkeyes are unbeaten in their last four contests, and they have quickly risen to the upper echelon of the league.

The rest of the nation has officially noticed.

Senior defenseman Dana Dalrymple, junior forward Ashley Catrell, and sophomore forward Cloe Lacasse made the cut on TopDrawerSoccer.com’s Midseason Big Ten Top-20 team on Wednesday.

The trio each scored spots in the list’s top 16, with Lacasse coming in at No. 3, Catrell No. 10, and Dalrymple No. 16.

Lacasse has led Iowa to an 11-1-2 record including a 2-1-2 mark in Big Ten play by posting 28 points on 11 goals and 6 assists. The underclassmen is only 1 goal away from matching her performance from last season, when she finished as the Hawkeyes’ leading scorer with 30 points on 12 goals and 6 assists. Lacasse has been held off the score-sheet during the team’s last four matches, when she has battled an ankle injury she suffered on Sept. 16 at Illinois.

Still, her hot start was enough to earn her a top-three slot on the list, behind only Christine Nairn of Penn State and Vanessa DiBernardo of Illinois.

Catrell entered 2012 with 5 career goals in two years, but the Kansan surpassed that mark four games into the season, and she has since bumped the total to 7. The junior also has 3 assists, bringing her point mark to 17 midway through the campaign, trailing only Lacasse.

Dalrymple has led a rather unheralded senior class with 13 points with 5 goals and 3 assists and has been a key cog in a defense corps that has allowed only 7 goals through 14 games. The veteran defender has also helped Iowa to a school-record nine shutouts, including four straight to open the 2012 slate.

Eight of the conference’s 12 teams were represented on the list, the others being Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Penn State, and Wisconsin.

— by Tom Clos