In a battle of the Big Ten’s best offense against the Big Ten’s best defense, No. 11 Iowa was overwhelmed by the No. 7 Nittany Lion attack.
Penn State earned an emphatic 5-1 win over the Field Hawks at the Penn State Field Hockey Complex on Sunday. It was Iowa’s first conference loss of the season.
“We did not play well in any facet of our game,” head coach Tracey Griesbaum said in a release. “We were on our heels within the first five minutes of the game and never recovered.”
The Nittany Lions entered Sunday’s matchup having scored 62 goals, which was the most in the Big Ten. Iowa’s defense is heralded as the conference’s best. It had only allowed 17 on the season before Sunday.
Penn State quickly put to rest any notion that the game would be a struggle. All-American forward Kelsey Amy had a hand in all three of its goals in the first half. She assisted Ashtin Klinger’s goal in the 10th minute before scoring two of her own in the 14th and 15th minute.
Amy scored again six minutes into the second half, rounding out a hat-trick. Klinger tallied her second goal during the 60th minute of the game, pushing Penn State’s lead to 5-0. Iowa senior Jessica Barnett scored the lone goal for the Hawkeyes during the 68th minute, finalizing the score at 5-1.
But the weekend wasn’t a complete loss for Iowa. They downed No. 15 Drexel, 3-1, on Oct. 12.
Drexel’s lone goal came in the 60th minute of the game, when Amanda Fleischut scored on a Rebecca Werner assist.
“We knew coming out of halftime that Drexel was going to come out and come after us,” Iowa’s head coach said after the game. “Drexel is a very good team, and luckily, we had a 3-goal lead, because they gave us their best effort in the second half.”
This road-trip was the last of the season for Iowa. The Hawks will wrap up the regular season with four-straight home games at Grant Field, with the next one being against Kent State on Saturday.
— by Cody Goodwin