Oct. 8, 2011
IOWA CITY, Iowa — The University of Iowa women’s soccer team suffered its second defeat of the season, falling 2-1 to Minnesota on Saturday night at the Iowa Soccer Complex. The Hawkeyes led 1-0 at the half, but the Golden Gophers netted a pair of second half strikes to claim the victory.
“I thought when we had the lead, we didn’t execute well enough,” said UI head coach Ron Rainey. “They took advantage of a couple of mistakes and had a good attitude going forward. We didn’t respond very well after going up, and we have to get better playing with the lead.”
The Hawkeyes struck first, scoring on a penalty kick in the 35th minute. Senior Morgan Showalter was on the attack from her defender position when she was tackled a foot inside the box by a Minnesota defender.
The Cedar Rapids, Iowa, native stepped to the line and drilled a shot into the upper left hand corner of the net past a diving Cat Parkhill to give Iowa the 1-0 lead. It was Showalter’s first goal of the season.
After going into the half down 1-0, the Golden Gophers netted a pair of goals in the second 45 minutes to take the game. Taylor Uhl — Minnesota’s leading scorer — struck in the 50th minute on an unassisted strike from 15 yards out. At the 68:13 mark, Becca Roberts netted the game-winning goal when she fired an unassisted strike into the upper left hand corner past an extended Emily Moran.
Iowa had an opportunity to even the game in the 78th minute due to Parkhill’s aggressiveness in goal. Alyssa Cosnek softly chipped a shot over the Golden Gopher goalkeeper as she was charging to coral the ball, but Minnesota’s Marissa Price got her foot on the ball, causing it to richoqet off the post to preserve the win.
Minnesota out shot the Hawkeyes, 14-11, in the game, but both squads had five shots on goal. Moran made three saves, while the Golden Gophers had four saves, three of which came from Parkhill.
“This is a setback, and we have to work hard this week in practice,” said Rainey. “We head into a stretch now where we’re playing a lot of really good Big Ten teams.”
Iowa (10-2-2, 2-2-2) returns to action at Ohio State on Oct. 14.