The No. 3-seeded Iowa field hockey team was blanked, 3-0, by No. 1-seeded Northwestern in the cold and snowy Big Ten tournament championship game on Sunday afternoon in Bloomington, Indiana.

Iowa struggled to gain a single offensive possession in the first half of play. The passing and transition game was easily broken up by Northwestern players, who put the Hawkeyes on notice early. 

Despite the early struggles to gain offense and continued defensive actions by Iowa, the score remained locked at zero goals a piece. 

Northwestern was only able to claim two penalty corner opportunities, both of which were blocked by the strong Hawkeye penalty corner defense led by fourth-year Mia Magnotta. 

But with Iowa only getting one shot off to Northwestern’s 10, it was up to the Hawkeyes to find some offensive opportunity in the second half. 

“We have to be able to commit to doing the work on attack and just joining hard,” head coach Lisa Cellucci told Hawkeye Sports. “We are playing a lot of great defense right now, but we are not going to win a game playing defense the whole time.”

Second Half 

The Hawkeyes looked to change some defensive arrangements in the second half, hopefully to prevent the Wildcats from having prolonged offensive possessions.

However, the Wildcats would spring out of the halftime break as Northwestern’s Grace Schulze found the back of the net less than 30 seconds into resumed play to give her team a 1-0 lead. 

The one-goal deficit for the Hawkeyes would remain through the third quarter of play, but Northwestern’s Ilse Tromp tacked on a second goal early in the fourth on a corner penalty attempt.

Iowa still struggled to keep the ball grounded and make clean passes to fellow players, making multiple simple mistakes and ultimately allowing Northwestern to clearly control the offensive possession.

Even with the strong goalkeeping by Mia Magnotta and fellow fourth-year Milly Short, the Hawkeyes would give up a third and final goal midway through the fourth quarter to Northwestern’s Ashley Sessa. 

The three-goal deficit would be too much for Iowa to overcome, and the snow continued to fall. When the final horn sounded, Northwestern celebrated the Big Ten tournament title and automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. 

Up next 

The Hawkeyes will have to wait for the selection committee to decide if their 14-5 overall record and conference tournament runner-up status is good enough to claim one of the eight at-large bids in the tournament. 

The selection show will take place later tonight at 9 p.m. CST.