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Dionne van Aalsum scores four goals, Hawkeyes defeat Kent State

On3 imageby: Kyle Huesmann09/05/25HuesmannKyle
Dionne van Aalsum scored four goals for the Hawkeyes on Friday. (Photo by UI Athletics)
Dionne van Aalsum scored four goals for the Hawkeyes on Friday. (Photo by UI Athletics)

For the Iowa Field Hockey team, this is a bit of a tune up weekend sandwiched between a pair of difficult weekends. The Big Ten/ACC Challenge is always a grueling way to start the season, while next weekend at the Midwest Challenge in Louisville will be another test. Still, Kent State wasn’t a side to take lightly, and it took two goals in the final 20 minutes for the Hawkeyes to finish out a 4-1 victory.

“Happy with the win. I think, yes, we could have put a better product out there, but it’s still early in the season, we’re working on a lot of different stuff,” said Dionne van Aalsum. “Good to get another win on Grant Field.”

Outside of a ten-minute stretch in the third quarter where the Golden Flashes cut the deficit to a single goal, the Hawkeyes were in control of the match. Junior forward Dionne van Aalsum, the NCAA leading goal scorer as a true freshman, scored just nine goals last season, but has already put seven goals on the board this season, including a career-high tying four goals on Friday afternoon.

“Dionne is at a whole other level of fitness, confidence, execution and she’s been practicing off the charts,” said head coach Lisa Cellucci. “She has great confidence in those around her, Frederique (van Cleef) and Felicia (Zonnenberg) who are up on the forward line with her, they’re very skilled. We just have a lot more pieces surrounding her, which allows her to take the pressure off.”

A scoreless tie into the second quarter, the Hawkeyes got on the board with a pair of goals that came in the 51 seconds. The first, in the 17th minute, came on a misplay by the Kent State back line. Forward Frederique van Cleef sent a bouncing pass into the circle that should have been cleared out by a Golden Flashes defender, but instead, it got to van Aalsum who evaded goalkeeper Allison Wood and slotted home the opening goal of the game.

Moments later, it was van Cleef on the attack again, dribbling into the circle and firing a shot on goal. The initial shot was saved by the goalkeeper Wood, but the rebound went straight to van Aalsum who finished the job to make it 2-0 Hawkeyes in the 18th minute.

“Yes, I’m the one to score the goals there, but it’s a team goal, and the effort was there from everybody to move the ball up the field and then you see we can get those opportunities,” said van Aalsum.

Although the talk of the game will be about the four goals scored by the All-American Dionne van Aalsum, the Hawkeyes didn’t sprint out to a 4-0 lead before a late goal from Kent State to get to the 4-1 final. The Golden Flashes, trailing by two goals in the third quarter, took advantage of a green card issued to Iowa and scored a 35th minute goal to get within a goal.

Off of an Iowa turnover, team captain Emma Rolston got out in transition, split a couple of Hawkeye defenders, dribbled into the circle and went back post past goalkeeper Mia Magnotta for a highlight goal. The Flashes only scored the single goal, but Lisa Cellucci was a little upset with how her team defended.

“Where I was frustrated and as a coaching staff, was a little bit with our defensive transition. We made it much harder on ourselves than we needed to,” said Cellucci. “It really came down to just us collectively being able to defend better together. We gave up way too many big moments, and that was unnecessary. Kent State’s a really good side.”

The goal gave Kent State some momentum and injected life into their bench, but the Hawkeyes didn’t let the lead slip tacking on two penalty corner goals. In the 44th minute and 58th minute, on carbon copy corner plays, Felicia Zonnenberg inserted to Dionne van Aalsum to the top left side of the circle, both ending with goals at the back post.

“We talked about the momentum for us and how we had to get the next goal to put the game away,” said Cellucci. “It was big (to get those). We did defend a little bit better there in the late stages of the game, but we didn’t need to put ourselves in such a tough position.”

They’ll look to take some lessons from today’s game into Sunday where they hope to put together a complete 60 minutes against Queens University.

“We have to clean up a couple of key things, most importantly, our defensive transition and our individual readiness, and we have to dominate Queens from the beginning on Sunday,” said head coach Lisa Cellucci. “We’ll have a look at the film, we’ll have a great day of practice tomorrow and we’ll be ready to go again.”

FINAL STATS

#15 Iowa 4 Kent State 1

’17 – Goal Iowa Dionne van Aaslum (1-0), 18′ – Goal Iowa Dionne van Aalsum (2-0), 35′ – Goal Kent State Emma Rolston (2-1), 44′ – Goal Iowa Dionne van Aalsum (3-1), 58′ – Goal Iowa Dionne van Aalsum (4-1)

Shots: Iowa 17-6 Shots on Goal: Iowa 13-4 Penalty Corners: Iowa 6-2

Up Next, the 15th-ranked Hawkeyes will close out the weekend hosting the Queens University Royals on Sunday afternoon at Grant Field. The game is set to get underway at 1:00pm CT on BTN+.

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