IOWA CITY, Iowa – The University of Iowa soccer team fell 3-0 to Wisconsin in its regular season home finale Saturday night at the Iowa Soccer Complex. The Hawkeyes are now 8-7-2 on the season.
The first half of action was nearly scoreless until Wisconsin’s Cameron Murtha knocked in a shot at the 42:23 mark with an assist from Sammy Kleedtke.
Wisconsin came out strong in the second half, scoring in the 50th and 53rd minutes.
The Hawkeyes only took four shots during the match.
QUOTING HEAD COACH DAVE DIIANNI
“It is a disappointing night, knowing what was at stake here, but I know we’re going to find a resilience to bounce back and be ready for next week. It looked like one team played on Wednesday and for the other it was their first game this week. You can’t be tired and mentally slow. You can’t be 0-2 and unfortunately that’s the way we were. I thought we were maybe going to push back a little bit in the second half but we gave up a couple really bad goals — something we haven’t done in quite some time — and that was just too much to battle back.”
On Wisconsin’s goals after the half…
“I thought we were prepared. We went into the half 1-0 and really didn’t give them any major opportunities other than that free kick and that was disappointing to everyone. I just think we were flat and we gave a ball away again on the second goal and they’ve got some good players that punished us. That second goal turned really quickly into three and that was the momentum. Give credit to Wisconsin. They played really well today. A lot was at stake for them too and they were up for it.”
NOTABLES
After the loss to Wisconsin the Hawkeyes sit in 10th place in the Big Ten standings with 11 points. The top eight teams advance to postseason action.
UP NEXT
The Hawkeyes finish the regular season on the road in Champaign, Illinois, facing the Fighting Illini on Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. (CT).