No. 7 Iowa soccer picked up its fifth home win of the year with a decisive 2-0 home win against Maryland Thursday night, extending the Hawkeyes’ overall record to 9-2–3 on the year. Graduate students Kenzie Roling and Kelli McGroarty scored for Iowa.
With just one home game left after tonight, Iowa came out with a clear message to dictate the pace of the game with strong offensive attacks.
Head coach Dave DiIanni was pleased with his squad’s overall efforts on the night.
“If there was maybe an improvement, I didn’t think we were great in the air in the backside of the midfield,” DIlanni said. “This gave them a couple of different transitional opportunities. But there’s an important win with a big three-game stretch coming up.”
Graduate-student goalkeeper Taylor Kane got the start defending the crosses for the Hawkeye defense. For Maryland, redshirt sophomore Faith Luckey got the nod anchoring the defense.
Second-year midfielder Sofia Bush was the first Hawkeye to strike against the Terrapins, firing a shot on goal at the 2:09 mark. The active Iowa offense made its game plan known right out of the gates — dominating field possession and keeping Luckey on her toes.
Luckey has been very active this season as Maryland’s main keeper, recording 57 saves and 19 goals allowed before tonight’s matchup.
Kane, on the other hand, did not see action until Ava Morales fired a shot off a free-kick at the 23:38 mark that struck the top left of the net.
Morales has been an instrumental part of Maryland’s season thus far, recording four scores on the year. Roling lobbed a shot right over Luckey’s head from a great pass off the leg of Bush.
The goal was overturned just minutes later with replay showing Roling off-sides on the Hawkeye attack — leaving the score at 0-0.
Roling eventually got the last laugh at the 33:19 mark, leading a Hawkeye offensive and recording a hard grounder off her right leg that evaded Luckey and broke the scoring drought to put Iowa ahead for good.
Second-year forward Berit Parten received a roar from teammates and fans as she saw her first appearance of the season at the 38:59 mark. Parten had been sidelined with an injury until tonight’s game.
Parten was a major part of the Hawkeye offense a season ago, leading the squad with seven goals as a true freshman.
The Iowa offense retained 72 percent of the possession on attack during the first half, but couldn’t add any more to the score column past Roling’s score, leaving the Hawkeyes up one score at the end of the half.
The second half was filled with back-and-forth offensive initiatives, with Iowa owning a majority of those attacks. Maryland continued its search for an offensive spark, but was not successful in this search, adding just one shot in the second half.
Roling’s score was the lone goal of the game until an attack from Bush found McGroarty, who tallied a header to add her team-leading fifth score of the year. Bush was credited with the assist, leading the team with five.
Despite the two goals allowed, Luckey had a stout night, recording nine saves on a staggering 27 shots from the Iowa offense. Kane ended the night seeing little action, recording just one save on three Maryland shots.
Up Next
Hawkeye soccer will pick up action at home against No. 18 Michigan State this Sunday for Iowa’s last home game of the season. The Spartans have a 6-2-5 record this season and are 3-0-3 in Big-10 play.
With three tough road games ahead, Dilanni believes tonight’s win was crucial for postseason success.
“We still want to chase that Big-10 championship, and to do that, we needed to win today,” DiIanni said.