A pair of losses over the weekend has the Iowa soccer team back at .500.
By Andrew Donlan
The Iowa soccer team (6-6) has cooled off considerably after winning six of its first seven to start the season.
Since then, the Hawkeyes have lost their last five games and are winless in conference play thus far. They are yet to score a goal against a conference foe.
The team faced two conference road tests this past weekend, falling 2-0 to No. 25 Penn State (7-2-2) on Sept. 23 and 3-0 to No. 17 Ohio State (7-4-1) on Sunday. Penn State improved to 3-0-1 in conference play and Ohio State picked up its first conference win in four tries.
After holding Penn State scoreless for the first half in State College, the Nittany Lions scored twice early in the second half to take the win.
“We asked our team to embrace the moment and compete for 90 minutes,” said Iowa head coach Dave DiIanni in a release. “We knew that Penn State is a team with many weapons, in particular its front five players.”
On Sunday, in Columbus, the Hawkeyes were victims of an incredible performance from senior Lindsay Agnew. She scored all 3 of Ohio State’s goals in the shutout, giving the Buckeyes their first hat trick since 2014. All of Agnew’s goals were scored in the first 10 minutes of the second half.
The Hawkeyes were outshot 13-10 and also had fewer shots on goal than the Buckeyes, 7-4. Bri Toelle was the leader for Iowa with 3 attempted shots during the course of the game.
Sunday marked the fourth-consecutive game that Iowa was held scoreless, leaving much room for improvement heading into the match against Purdue on Friday at home.
Purdue has just three wins on the season and only one win in conference. Certainly, after the way conference play has started for the Hawkeyes, there has to be a sense of urgency.
After Purdue, the Hawkeyes won’t have another contest until they head to Minneapolis to take on Minnesota on Oct. 6.
Following the Sept. 23 loss, DiIanni still sounded more optimistic than discouraged.
“We are building as a team in the right direction and improving every day,” he said in a release. “We are still making too many mistakes to win games of this magnitude.”