Hoosiers fall to Iowa, Nebraska during weekened

It came down to one goal.

The IU women’s soccer team committed a foul in its own box at Iowa on Friday night, resulting in the only goal of the game from a first half penalty kick and a 1-0 loss for IU.

Despite what he called a disappointing result, IU Coach Mick Lyon said he was very impressed and pleased with his team’s performance.

“I told the team afterward that it is an absolute pleasure to coach this team when they play with the kind of effort and creativity and put forth those great performances all over the pitch,” Lyon said in a press release.

In their second conference game of the season, the Hoosiers held their own, maintaining movement of the ball and possession throughout, he said.

However, Iowa drilled 21 shots throughout the game, compared to IU’s 13.

Junior goalkeeper Shannon Flower registered a career-high 10 saves in the match.

“If we continue to play like this, I have all the confidence in the world that we can win any of the remaining Big Ten games,” Lyon said in the release.

Sunday afternoon, a 2-1 loss against Nebraska rounded out the weekend for IU, bringing the team to a 0-3 record thus far in Big Ten play.

“The girls are very disappointed, not getting any wins from this weekend,” Lyon said. “From a coach’s side, I think we played a lot better this weekend than we did last weekend, so that’s positive.”

The first half of the match ended scoreless, but Nebraska scored early in the second off a corner kick to bring the Cornhuskers into the lead.

Another corner kick five minutes later allowed Nebraska’s Jaylyn Odermann to head the ball into the net, increasing the lead to 2-0.

IU freshman defender Caitlin O’Connor scored the Hoosiers’ lone goal off a corner in the final minute of the match, which was the first goal of her career.

Although IU took 13 shots to Nebraska’s 11, the Hoosiers struggled to optimize their chances and put forth the extra effort necessary when it comes to the Big Ten, Lyon said.

“Unfortunately, we lacked that little bit to give the last 10 percent,” he said. “You need that extra 10 percent to go from a good performance to a good win.”

Lyon said finding ways to maximize the team’s opportunities off of combinations will be the focus going forward, especially going into next weekend.

“We’ve got to come out next week and throughout this week at practice and work on finishing chances,” he said. “We just need that extra focus to put it in the back of the net.”