EAST LANSING, Mich. – A pair of early second-half goals from Iowa proved to be too much to overcome for Michigan State women’s soccer, as the top-seeded Spartans fell to the eighth-seeded Hawkeyes, 2-1, in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals Sunday afternoon at DeMartin Stadium.
MSU drops to 12-4-3 with the result, while Iowa moves to 10-4-4.
“Their (Iowa) intensity was really hard for us to match. From the opening whistle, they were the more physical and aggressive team,” said head coach Jeff Hosler. “They did such a great job getting to first balls and getting into a good position to collect second balls. They won way more tackles than we did and those are the little things that don’t show up in the stat sheet. Their effort was a little bit greater than ours today and I think their mentality coming out of halftime to take the game to us was better than ours.”
In a physical game from start to finish, the Hawkeyes held a narrow 11-9 advantage in the shot count while putting eight of their shots on goal. MSU led the corner kick battle, 5-3.
In similar fashion to much of the game, the opening 10 minutes proved to be a defensive battle. The Hawkeyes got their first offensive opportunity with an on-target shot from Kelli McGroarty in the 10th minute, but the shot was corralled by MSU goalkeeper Kaitlyn Parks to keep the game scoreless.
The Spartans earned a pair of corner kicks in the following two minutes but were unable to generate any scoring…
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