The Iowa field-hockey team hopes to improve on defense.

By Mario Williams
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As the Iowa field-hockey team prepares to travel to Harrisonburg,

Virginia, for matches against Richmond and James Madison, there’s one thing it needs to correct — defense.

The Hawkeyes opened their season last weekend in Ann Arbor, Michigan and came home 1-1, knocking off Wake Forest in overtime, 2-1, but falling short against North Carolina, 2-1. The Hawks’ loss to the Tar Heels marks their 14th loss against the team in the past 15 years.

But Iowa head coach Lisa Cellucci called the squad’s first win of the season a team win.

“It was definitely positive to come out 1-1 against two top-11 programs,” she said. “I think we had a lot of question marks going into the weekend, and we definitely learned a lot about the group, and it was a really good effort. Especially to get the win on Saturday.”

The team may have more of those question marks going into this weekend, based on its performance in Michigan.

Thus far, the squad has allowed its opponents to receive 19 corners and 24 shots in total in both periods.

To say the Hawkeyes need to improve on defense is an understatement. Richmond and James Madison aren’t top-20 ranked teams, but both got big wins in their opening weekends.

“Our defense is going to be paramount this weekend,” Cellucci said. “Both teams have a lot of different weapons. We have to be able to stay in the game and not get easily eliminated.”

Cellucci has been emphasizing the defense in prepping her team. The squad got a chance to watch footage of the mistakes the players made last week, hoping to improve this weekend.

“Getting two wins and having the team play well would be nice,” junior Chandler Ackers said. “We need to just keep nailing down our defense.”

Aside from defense, lack of depth plagues the Hawkeyes, and that will continue to this weekend and the rest of the season, forcing many players to play extended minutes.

One of those athletes in particular is junior Stephanie Norlander, who won the game against Wake Forest in overtime.

“It definitely puts a little pressure on me knowing that people are looking for me and maybe have me on their scouting reports,” Norlander said. “That just means we’re going to have to use the rest of the team more, and maybe by drawing attention to me, it’ll leave other people open.”

As a leader of the team, Norlander tries to show her teammates the ins-and-outs of good defense.

“We always talk about our goals for practice and for the week before we go out, and this week is definitely defense,” Norlander said. “We try to just talk about how we’re going to defend and then try to do it at practice.”

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