The home stretch of the field hockey season is quickly approaching, as the Iowa Field Hockey team is set to go on the road for the next five games before returning home for one final home game at Grant Field at the end of October. Not only is the end of the regular season on the near horizon, but so is the NCAA Tournament. Last season, the Hawkeyes hosted a pair of tournament games at Grant Field and are once again hoping to be one of the four teams to have that special opportunity.
“It’s a really tight race. These next couple of games are going to be very important and we just don’t have much margin for error,” said Head Coach Lisa Cellucci. “You have to be in the top four in the RPI and then probably in the top six of the KPI.”
Currently, the Hawkeyes sit at #6 in the RPI rankings with North Carolina, Northwestern, Penn State, Maryland and Virginia ahead of them, while Louisville and Princeton are just behind at 7-8. In the KPI, it’s a similar story. Iowa sits at #7, which means as of right now, the Hawkeyes are probably on the outside looking in when it comes to hosting.
However, the good news is that the Hawkeyes travel to State College for a couple of big opportunities, starting with #5 Penn State on Friday and #17 James Madison on Sunday. The PSU game has implications in the Big Ten, while both games have RPI implications.
“It’s huge because I think there’s an opportunity for some teams to still beat Maryland, so if we can get another Big Ten win against an opponent like that. It’s big. It’s also another top five win for our resume,” said Cellucci. “Same thing with James Madison. We can’t afford to drop a non-conference match.”
In preparation for the big weekend ahead, the Hawkeyes have been working in practice to clean up a few issues that were present this past weekend. Against Maryland, a lot of passes either found Terrapin sticks or the out of bounds line, while against Rutgers, Iowa got offensive zone pressure, but got just one goal on 9 shots.
“We’ve really been focusing on our tackle to possession. When we do dispossess another team, being able to make the first pass via possession and then actually getting an upgraded final third. That’s what it comes down to for us,” said Cellucci. “We’re putting a lot of balls over the endline. Just a lot of chances that are just going without any type of outcome.”
The #5 Penn State Nittany Lions enter the Friday matchup with a 9-2 record including wins over #6 Virginia, #9 St Joseph’s, #10 Michigan, #21 Albany and #24 Ohio State. Their losses came against #2 Northwestern in OT and #7 Louisville.
The offensive attack is led by the second-best scoring duo in the country behind Baekers and Halsey at Northwestern. F Sophia Gladieux and MF Mackenzie Allessie have combined for 53 shots on goal, 23 goals and 11 assists. Those two will pose a number of problems for the Iowa defense.
“Sophia is probably the fittest and fastest player in the NCAA. She’s just so handy. She has the quickest hands on the ball, so that is a problem and she’s on every part of their offensive scheme,” said Coach Cellucci. “Mackenzie Allessie can play end line to end line. Same thing, quick hands and just a very savvy player. It’ll be one of the toughest matchups we will have.”
The Hawkeyes defeated Penn State twice a year ago and held Gladieux and Allessie to just four shots and zero goals. They will have to pull from that game plan if they want to get the win on Friday.
“We were able to run with them and just deny and disrupt. They got very frustrated because they couldn’t get into a flow, so that’s really going to be our key. Who ever is on them or whoever picks them up, we’re trying to disrupt.”
MF Anna Simon is another name to watch offensively. Even though she has scored just two goals this season, Simon has 40 goals and 18 assists over her career with the Nittany Lions. Overall, the offense is averaging 3.18 goals, 15.4 shots, 8.4 shots on goal and 6.4 penalty corners per game.
Defensively, the Nittany Lions are allowing just 10.3 shots and 5.8 shots on goal per game. Coach Cellucci talked a little bit about what they may see from the PSU defenders.
“When we play up the field, they’re going to pack it in. Put all numbers under the ball and that’s really hard to do. They have some really physical, good tacklers in their backfield. We have to be able to make sure we have real strength on the ball, but we feel like if we can get them moving and move the ball quite a bit, we can expose some of their backfield players.”
In goal for Penn State will be Brie Barraco. In 11 games this season Barraco has allowed 15 goals on 62 shots for a .758 save percentage. One key to winning? Coach Cellucci says that they will have to defend the transition attack of the Nittany Lions. If they are able to do that and stick to the same game plan of frustrating Gladieux and Allessie, the Hawkeyes will have a recipe for victory.
Sunday, the Hawkeyes will face #17 James Madison in a non-conference game to wrap up the weekend. The Dukes are 7-4 this season, including wins over #16 Liberty, #20 William & Mary and #25 Duke. However, against top 15 teams JMU has been outmatched getting outscored 10-3 in three games.
“They’re quite similar to Penn State,” said Cellucci. “They have a couple of very handy players in the midfield and frontline. They’re fast, they run hard and they’re very good when executing their set pieces. We’re preparing pretty similarly.”
MF Diede Remijnse and F Eveline Zwanger have combined for 13 goals on the year, while F Cassidy Strittmatter has an additional four goals on the year. D Kara McClure has been a quintessential part of the offense with 10 assists on the season.
On defense, the Dukes are holding opponents to 5.5 shots on goal and 4.9 penalty corners, but are still allowing 1.91 goals per game. GK Brandelynn Heinbaugh is allowing a goal on 30.6% of shots on goal she faces. The key to winning on Sunday?
“We’re going to have to execute on our penalty corners,” said Cellucci. The Hawkeyes have converted on 15 of 59 (25.4%) penalty corner opportunities this season.
Overall, this weekend could have a big impact on the Hawkeyes chances for a Big Ten regular season title, as well as their chances of hosting an NCAA Tournament regional. A pair of wins this weekend would give Iowa a real resume boost and likely move them back onto the right side of the hosting picture.
The Hawkeyes match-up against Penn State is set for 5:00pm on BTN+, while Sunday’s match-up is set for 10:00am and will also be streamed on BTN+.
