By Blake Dowson
Iowa soccer fans who wish to see the women play at home during the fall season will have 11 chances to do so; Iowa head coach Dave DiIanni announced Tuesday that the Hawkeyes will host that number of home matches.
Iowa’s 20-game schedule (19 regular-season matchups and one exhibition) is stacked full of NCAA Tournament qualifiers from a season ago. There are eight teams on the schedule that qualified, with six of those qualifying for the Round of 32.
An exhibition contest against Kansas on Aug. 12 will open the year, followed by a trip to take on Virginia Commonwealth on Aug. 18 and Richmond on Aug. 20.
After their trip to the Commonwealth, 10 of the Hawkeye’s next 11 games will be in Iowa City, starting with the annual rivalry against Iowa State on Aug. 25.
Matches against blue-chip Notre Dame (Aug. 27), Southern Utah (Aug. 31), Cal-Santa Barbara (Sept. 3 in Minneapolis), Montana (Sept. 8), and Loyola Chicago (Sept. 10) will round out the nonconference slate.
Iowa’s first four opponents in the Big Ten schedule — Nebraska, Penn State, Ohio State, and Michigan — all made the NCAA Tournament in 2016. Even after that tough stretch to start conference play, the Hawkeyes will have to deal with two more Round of 32 teams — Rutgers and Wisconsin — in October.
If the Hawkeyes, who finished 8-11 last year with a 2-9 Big Ten record, can manage to finish in the top eight in the conference standings, they will qualify for the Big Ten Tournament, which hosts its games on league campuses.