Sweet 16 within reach for Iowa women’s soccer team

IOWA CITY — It has been the goal since the beginning of the season.

The University of Iowa has never gotten past the Round of 32 at the NCAA women’s soccer tournament. But after a 2-1 ouster of No. 14-seed Missouri State in the first round Friday night at the UI Soccer Complex, the third-seeded Hawkeyes are a win away from that coveted program milestone.

“We’ve got a lot of seniors who have played a lot of soccer for this team,” Iowa Coach Dave Dilanni said. “That have been here since 2020 when the pandemic started. This is their third NCAA tournament. This is their second hosting it at home. Meike Ingles, Maggie Johnston, Rielee Fetty, Macy Enneking. Just players that have played a lot of minutes here. I think it would mean a lot to them. They’ve put a lot of hard work into the process. Your legacy is what it is when you leave at the end. They should be really proud of what they have done.”

The victory gives Iowa (14-2-4) just its third NCAA tournament win. The Hawkeyes also won last year’s NCAA tournament first round match, but were upended in the second round by Georgia. If Iowa is to reach its first “Sweet 16,” it will need to beat the winner of Saturday’s match between sixth-seeded Georgetown and No. 11 Fairfield next Friday, most likely at UCLA’s Wallis Annenberg Stadium in Los Angeles.

“That means everything,” Iowa senior defender Miah Schueller said. “We’ve really wanted to make it far in this tournament, especially further than last year. That has been a huge goal of ours and I think we are definitely capable of doing that.”

Ingles got the scoring started for the Hawkeyes with a goal in the 22nd minute off an assist from Kenzie Roling. It was the sixth goal this season for Ingles and the fifth assist for Roling.

“Our team applied what we practiced all week long,” Ingles said. “Playing set balls. Kenzie had a wonderful ball to cross it and I just timed my run right.”

Iowa tacked on a valuable insurance goal in the 48th minute when Johnston scored with a header off an assist from Lauren Geczik.

The tally was Johnston’s third this season and the assist was Geczik’s fourth. The goal allowed the Hawkeyes to absorb a Missouri State goal with just over 12 minutes left in the match.

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“We just try to keep the ball,” Schueller said. “We got a little dicey at the end there and we needed to keep the ball a little more than we were giving it away. … When we’re just up with one (goal), then we just need to keep it together and keep calm, cool and collected.”

Jenna Anderson registered the lone goal for Missouri State (13-5-3), which entered the match with the nation’s longest active winning streak (nine games). Iowa outshot the Bears, 28-7.

“This whole group has a pretty high standard for this team and we just kind of keep it going throughout the whole program,” Ingles said. “We’re not done yet.”

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