By Michael McCurdy
The Iowa field-hockey team learned a lot from last weekend’s slate of games in North Carolina. After upsetting No. 7 Wake Forest and competing with No. 1 North Carolina throughout most of the game but ultimately falling short, the Hawks are ready for whatever comes next.
This weekend, Iowa has another two matches, with its home-opener taking on Fairfield at 2 p.m. today and St. Louis at 1 p.m. Sept. 4.
Fairfield is no walk-through; the Stags are coming off their first season in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, in which they posted a 9-9 record, better than Iowa’s 9-10 from last season. They placed fourth overall in the conference, but once it came tourney time, they ended up winning the conference tournament and earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament. It was a great feat for Fairfield, whose season eventually came to an end in a game versus Boston University.
The Hawks understand they cannot overlook the two opponents this weekend. If they want to go far this season, they need the right mindset for every opponent.
As one of the team’s leaders, redshirt senior Natalie Cafone understands part of her job is to make her team is ready to play. When asked about Fairfield and what it bring to the table, Cafone said Fairfield would be ready to play.
“I don’t know much about Fairfield this year, other than year in and year out, they always have a great program, so as long as we come out ready to play with our attack mindset we will be fine,” Cafone said.
Iowa head coach Lisa Cellucci also wants her team to come into this weekend just like the last — the minor difference being coming away with two wins instead of one. She knows the competition is in no way going to be as good as last weekend, coming off games against two teams ranked in the top-seven. So, in order for the Hawks to generate lots of success this weekend they cannot overlook the competition one bit.
“Fairfield is a phenomenal program, they usually produce winning seasons close to every year. So, I’ve been ushering to my team we’ve got to come out ready to play and attack,” Cellucci said. “This will be a great weekend for us to get better at playing with our lack of depth, we’ll learn more things about our team chemistry that will only improve things for the future.”
After Fairfield, the Hawks take on the Billikens from St. Louis, who are coming off of a rough (1-18) season. The Billikens do return lots of experience, but they will be tested by an experienced, hungry Iowa squad. The Hawkeyes lead the all-time series against Saint Louis, 16-5-1 and they are 10-1 all-time versus St. Louis at Grant Field.
Senior Chandler Ackers said that St. Louis will be greatly under-matched against the Hawks, but she still sees areas the team can improve on during the game.
“Last weekend against North Carolina, our conditioning really got tested because as a team we played the second half very fatigued with our lack of depth,” Ackers said. “This will be a great game to work staying focused when fatigued, because I think if we can improve that we can go far in Big Ten play and then who knows after that.”
If Iowa meets its goal this weekend by coming away with two convincing victories, it will result in the team boarding a momentum train that appears to only be accelerating.
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