The Iowa soccer team will play host to Michigan Thursday as it travels to the TBK Sports Complex in Bettendorf for its home opener at noon.

Iowa defeated Michigan in an exhibition matchup in August 2019, winning the game, 1-0.

This is the fourth game of the season for the Hawkeyes. Iowa was defeated in its last match by Indiana, 2-0. Michigan is coming into the matchup off a 1-0 loss against Wisconsin.

While the Hawkeyes fell in the first three matches, they outshot their opponents in each of the contests. But the team is still looking for its first goal of the season.

Sophomore defender Sam Cary said the start of the season hasn’t gone the way they would have liked but they have gotten better from one competition to the next.

“It’s been an interesting season thus far,” Cary said. “But right now, at the end of the day, if you look at the last three games we’ve played, we’ve gotten better each game we’ve played. That’s a big take away and a huge momentum boost, even though we haven’t gotten the result we want. It’s an ability for us to see that we’re improving and that we need to keep walking that path to improvement going into this weekend.”

Coming into the season, the Hawkeyes returned six starters from the 2019 season, where the Hawkeyes won a program-record 15 games and accumulated 25 goals. Junior Samantha Tawharu and sophomore Gianna Gourley are the team’s top returning goal scorers from last season with five apiece.

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The Hawkeyes this year have an abundance of youth on the team while sporting only one senior, Diane Senkowski. Eight newcomers, who are all freshmen, have rounded out the 28-player roster. Eighteen out of the 28 players are underclassmen, including 10 freshmen or redshirt freshmen. Four freshmen — midfielder Maggie Johnston, forward Aleisha Ganief, midfielder Rielee Fetty, and forward Meike Ingles — have all started this season.

Iowa head coach Dave DiIanni knows that team has to perform better, but he also knows that it will take some time for a team that is so young and didn’t have the opportunity to play against non-conference opponents.

“No one is going feel sorry for us, we know that,” DiIanni said. “It’s our job to get up to speed as quickly as we can. At the end of the day, when we lose 14 seniors and you only bring back six players that played a lot of minutes the last two years, it’s going to take some time.”

The Hawkeyes are most experienced in the defender position. Junior Sara Wheaton and Cary started every game in 2019. The Hawkeyes midfield is held down by junior Hailey Rydberg, who started 11 games in 2019. Junior Josie Durr has played in 33 career games, starting in 11.

In the net, sophomore Monica Wilhelm has started every competition this season. Redshirt freshman Sabrina Shaw and freshman Macy Enneking round out the goalkeeper position, and both have no collegiate playing experience.

DiIanni says the team this week will be looking to find consistency in performance, mental approach, and emotional investment within the game.

“We’re looking for improvement in terms of recognition of mistakes,” DiIanni said. “Mistakes happen, but those mistakes cannot result in immediate goals. We’re trying to recognize there has been a mistake and cauterize that cut.”