In Oct. 31’s soccer action, the Hawkeyes lost to Nebraska, 2-1, in Lincoln but still managed to lock up the fifth seed in this week’s Big Ten Tournament.
Things started out nicely enough for the Hawkeyes — senior Cloe Lacasse scored a goal in the first five minutes of the game to put Iowa ahead. It was her 11th goal of the season, which gave her 110 career points, which is two shy of Sarah Lynch’s school record.
“We started off our first 20 minutes, we were all over them, like we were doing great, technically we looked very sound,” Lacasse said. “After that, we dropped off, absorbed way to much contact, absorbed way too much pressure — it was a learning experience.”
Iowa continued to dominate through the first portion of the game, but Nebraska was able to equalize in the 34th minute, and the game went into half tied 1-1.
Both teams played back and forth ball throughout the second half, but Nebraska managed a strike in the 75th minute to pull ahead. Iowa had no answer and went on to lose the match and fall to 12-6-1 on the season.
“Partly it was because we didn’t come out for the whole 90 minutes, and we needed to be focused and weren’t,” senior Melanie Pickert said. “They caught us on a little lull, and they capitalized on it — the game opened up so much, and there were a lot of 50-50 balls.”
Despite playing against statistically one of the worst defenses in the Big Ten, it’s a minor surprise Iowa only managed eight shots in of the game.
Maybe even more surprising was the general consensus among the players that the Nebraska game was going to be an emotional rematch of the 2013 Big Ten Tournament title match.
Iowa came out to a fast start, but was not able to capitalize and allowed Nebraska to grind out the win.
“It was a game of runs and we really played well in the first 10-20 minutes, but I think sometimes when our team scores a goal, they have a tendency to stop playing,” head coach Dave DiIanni said. “They stop being aggressive and kind of play on their heels and we did that.
“But on the same token, we gave up a lot of possessions but we didn’t give up a lot of chances.”
Even with the loss, the Hawkeyes were able to lock up the fifth overall seed in this year’s Big Ten Tournament, and they will face fourth seeded Rutgers at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.
It will be a rematch of the Sept. 28 match between the two teams, in whichsaw Rutgers grabbed a narrow 1-0 victory over Iowa.
For the team, the focus is wholly on Rutgers, the Big Ten Tournament and beyond.
“It obviously hurt everyone having to do with that being our last conference game, but with that being said now we know what has to be done during the tournament to follow up on our season,” Lacasse said. “We’re a different team now than we were then and we know our strengths and we know our weaknesses.”
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