The Iowa soccer team dropped its fourth match of the season Sunday evening, losing to Wisconsin, 2-1, on a goal in the 81st minute.

The loss drops Iowa’s overall record to 11-4-1 and its record in Big Ten play to 3-4-1.

“We battled today; we worked extremely hard,” Iowa head coach Ron Rainey said. “We made a couple errors. One that led to a goal, and we weren’t able to counter those errors with someone who was able to save a goal.”

The first strike of the match came from the Badgers at the 13:46 mark of the contest. With an assist from Cara Walls, Alev Kelter launched a left-foot shot from the top of the box that found the back of the net.

The Hawks evened the score up in the 47th minute. Freshman Bri Toelle finished off the far post after an assist from junior Anne Marie Thomas — her first of the season. The goal was Toelle’s third of the season.

“After we scored our goal, there was a little bit of momentum,” Rainey said. “We had a couple more chances, and then we weren’t able to take the pressure off our defense by scoring that second goal.”

The game remained tied until the 80:50 mark of the match when Rose Lavelle scored her sixth goal of the season. That proved to be the difference.

The Hawks were outshot during the game 17-14. Of the Hawks’ 14 shots, 6 of them landed on target. Iowa goalkeeper Hannah Clark finished the match with two saves.

“I’m really proud of the way we worked,” Rainey said. “The league is a grind, and we talked about 1-goal games. We had two more this weekend and just didn’t come out on the right end of them.”

The Hawks will return home for their first game since Oct. 6, when they defeated Michigan State, 1-0. Iowa will play its final three games of the regular season at home against Penn State, Ohio State, and Purdue.

“We’ve got to take care of things physically and get ourselves back,” Rainey said. “But we also have to become a stronger team mentally in these next two weeks. If we do those things, I think we’ll take a step forward.”

— by Jacob Sheyko