The Hawkeyes go 0-2 in their first two Big Ten home games of the season.

By Courtney Baumann
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Two top-tier opponents paid a visit to Iowa City and handed the Iowa soccer team a pair of losses.

The soccer team fell to No. 20 Ohio State on Sept. 25 and No. 4 Penn State on Sunday.

In its first home Big Ten game of the season, Iowa was unable to give a record-breaking crowd of 1,847 a victory.

The first goal of the Ohio State game in the 33rd minute by the Buckeyes’ Nichelle Prince. The Hawkeyes quickly responded with a goal of their own two minutes later.

Senior Brooke Backes took a pass up the middle from Rachele Armand to score the Hawks’ only goal of the game.

After the score, Iowa seemed to control much of the game. However, when a penalty at the top of the team’s goal box led to a Buckeye score on a direct free kick, the momentum shifted in favor of Ohio State.

Even though Iowa had numerous other chances to score in one-on-one situations, the players were unable to convert. The game ended 3-1 in favor of the Buckeyes.

“We need to get past this little hump and start finishing,” junior Amanda Lulek said. “We just need to start working hard for each other.”

The game added another loss to the Hawkeyes’ record, and head coach Dave DiIanni saw it as misfortune on Iowa’s part.

“I think we competed and played hard. When you’re absorbing so much pressure, misses are tough,” he said. “It was a good game, and both teams played hard. I thought we had chances to take some of the momentum, but we didn’t.”

Sunday was a similar story with a similar outcome.

Penn State was in control almost the whole game and was rarely on the defensive. This led to Iowa having very few chances to score, and Penn State scoring a lot.

The game ended at 5-1, Lions.

Again, DiIanni was forgiving.

“I think Penn State is a really, really good team,” the second-year head coach said. “We’re in a really tough stretch to start the season … but those aren’t excuses. We need to ask more of each other and be better in certain areas.”

The Nittany Lions scored 2 goals within four minutes of each other early in the game and seemed to be in complete control until a penalty kick was awarded to Iowa after a corner kick. Junior Bri Toelle scored easily to bring the Hawks within 1, but it took fewer than two minutes for Penn State to answer with another goal.

Penn State spent a majority of the second half playing an aggressive game of keep-away and had the second string in by the 62nd minute.

Four members of the Nittany Lions who played most of the second half had only seen a combined time of 122 minutes so far this season.

A couple of Hawkeyes who had not seen much time on the field got their first playing time, too. Freshman goalkeeper Emma Rigby was put into the game with 20 minutes left to replace goalie Hannah Clark, who had seen every minute of every game in 2015. Sophomore Laura Lainson also saw game time for the first time.

“It was really exciting, a little nerve-racking,” Rigby said. “But we had nothing to lose at that point, and we still wanted to work hard, so I wanted to work hard for my team.”

Iowa will head to Indiana, where the team desperately needs a win.

“This group is pretty motivated … We have lots of points still to get. We feel like we have opponents that we can be successful with and match up pretty well with,” DiIanni said. “We’re going to be ready to go for Indiana.”

Follow @cbomb12 on Twitter for news, analysis, and updates on the Iowa soccer team.