California weekend has mixed results for field hockey

Hawkeye field hockey took down California and Cal-Davis.

Taylor McNitt, [email protected]

September 5, 2017

Iowa’s Mallory Lefkowitz hit the ball during a field hockey game during the Big Ten/ACC Challenge at Grant Field in Iowa City on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2017. The Hawkeyes fell to the Tarheels, 3-0. (Lily Smith/The Daily Iowan)

After a long Labor Day weekend in California, the Hawkeye field-hockey team returns with a 2-3 record.

During the Sept. 1 game against No. 5 Stanford, which was moved to later in the evening because of extreme heat, the Hawkeyes fell, 3-2.

Senior Mallory Lefkowitz started the game off strong with an unassisted goal in the fourth minute of the game. Stanford retaliated 30 minutes later with a goal on a penalty corner.

The Cardinal scored again five minutes later. Iowa answered six minutes after that, thanks to another unassisted rebound goal by Lefkowitz.

A stalemate ensued, but in the 62nd minute, Iowa buckled, and Stanford pulled out the win.

“I was very proud of the effort and grit we displayed in some adverse conditions,” said head coach Lisa Cellucci in a release. “Unfortunately, we lost the turnover battle, and we need to value the ball more in order to finish these games.”

Despite the disappointing end to the first game of the three-game series, the Hawkeyes bounced back to shut out California on Sept. 3, 3-0.

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Freshman Madeline Murphy registered her second goal of the season by scoring the first goal in the win against the Golden Bears. Sophomore Katie Birch added another 25 minutes later, and 10 minutes after that, sophomore Isabella Solaroli rounded out the score for a 3-0 victory.

“This was a great team win,” Cellucci said in a release. “We stuck to the game plan, kept our composure, and finished our opportunities.”

The win against California gave Iowa its first win for the season.

On Monday, the Hawkeyes took on Cal-Davis, notching an easy victory, 4-0. That game was goalkeeper Katie Jones’ second shutout this season and the her career third. She registered 12 saves on the weekend, 7 of them in the Sept. 3 game against California. That was a career-high for the senior.

The Sept. 4 game started out with Murphy again, scoring her third goal of the season in the seventh minute. Birch scored the next 2 goals of the game, and freshman Lizzy Cimilluca added a goal to make the Labor Day game a clear win.

With strong playing against tough teams both in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge and against Stanford on Sept. 1, the Hawkeyes know what to expect for the season and know how they can improve to take on the next top-20 team. The two wins they registered this past weekend also helped to buff their record, giving the Hawkeyes reason to look forward to the rest of the season.