Cards Fall 2-1 to No. 6 Iowa

Sunday, October 15

LOUISVILLE, KY

12:00 PM

University of Louisville

(12-3)

Iowa

(12-2)

Iowa

Louisville

Photo by: Rachel Klotz | Louisville Athletics

October 15, 2023 | Field Hockey

Box Score Photo Gallery

Rylie Wollerton scores Louisville's lone goal in a 2-1 setback against No. 6 Iowa

By: Lori Harmon

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The fifth-ranked University of Louisville fell short 2-1 to No. 6 Iowa Sunday afternoon at Trager Stadium.

In their first home loss of the season, Louisville outshot the Hawkeyes 13-9 with an 8-6 edge in shots on goal and owned a 9-5 advantage in penalty corners. Merlijn van der Vegt had four stops in the game while Mia Magnotta recorded seven saves for Iowa. The setback drops Louisville's record to 12-3 with all three losses coming against teams ranked among the top six in the nation.

"It was a great contest against another wonderful opponent, they are a very talented team," said UofL head coach Justine Sowry. "We were really looking forward to this game today. Obviously, the result we didn't want, but I thought that we played some really good hockey."

Iowa (12-2) got on the scoreboard in the sixth minute of the contest. After the Hawkeyes drew their second penalty corner, Dionne van Aalsum's initial shot was stopped by van der Vegt, but she redirected the rebound into the cage for her first goal of the contest.

After trailing 1-0 at halftime, the Cardinals dialed up their attack, firing off six shots and earning three corners in the third quarter, but the Iowa defense held them at bay with Magnotta turning back three shots on goal.

The Hawkeyes added an insurance goal in the fourth quarter when van Aalsum rifled penalty corner shot into the cage for her second score of the contest and nation-leading 25^th goal of the season to put Iowa up 2-0 with under six minutes left to play.

The Cards continued to fight and finally broke through when Rylie Wollerton tipped Julie Kouijzer's penalty corner shot with 10 seconds remaining in the game to make the score 2-1.

"Details matter, they've got this wonderful goal scorer and she put two on the board," said Sowry. "I thought overall we certainly had our chances. They took theirs and we didn't always take ours, but I am proud of the way we played and the effort in sticking to our game plan and I'm certainly really proud of this group with the run that we've had with five games in two weeks against really good opponents. I'm disappointed, but at the same time, we're right where we need to be and we're looking forward to the last couple of weeks of the season."

Louisville will wrap up its home slate next weekend when the Cardinals play host to No. 13 Syracuse on Friday and Appalachian State on Sunday.