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"The NCAA Tournament is when legacies come alive": Iowa Soccer prepares for their third consecutive tournament appearance

On3 imageby: Kyle Huesmann23 hours agoHuesmannKyle
The Hawkeyes open tournament play on Friday against South Dakota State. (Photo by Dennis Scheidt)
The Hawkeyes open tournament play on Friday against South Dakota State. (Photo by Dennis Scheidt)

The NCAA Tournament used to be a dream for the Iowa Soccer program. Most years, it wasn’t even a realistically attainable dream. Under head coach Dave Dilanni, the Hawkeyes are turning a field of 64 appearance into a common occurrence. On Friday night, they’ll host an opening round game for the third consecutive season when Summit League champ South Dakota State comes to town. A few years back, preparation for the tournament was different with players that had never been there before. Now, it’s business as usual for the Hawkeyes ahead of their tournament opener.

“It’s really exciting (to be selected),” said junior defender Millie Greer on Tuesday morning. “Now that this will be our third consecutive year in the NCAA Tournament, we have coaches and people on the team that are confident in our abilities to take it another step further. It’s just a really exciting time, and the team gets another rush of energy going into it.”

Last season was the best in program history, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time and tying a program record with 15 wins. This season hasn’t been as smooth of sailing, but still successful, reaching double-digit wins for the sixth time under Dilanni. They enter the tournament with an 11-4-4 overall record and finished in a tie for third in the Big Ten standings. However, there have been ups and downs with a couple high-level wins, a few disappointing results and several key injuries that have changed the lineup throughout the year.

The latest twist to the season came at the Big Ten Tournament. The Hawkeyes fell in the opening round for the second consecutive season, losing 3-0 to border rival Wisconsin. It was far from a performance the players and coaches were happy with, but it wasn’t the worst result.

“I don’t think anybody was happy in our program with how we played against Wisconsin,” said Dilanni. “There was a lot of accountability as to why it went wrong, where it went wrong and then there was moving forward to grow. One of the things our program does a great job of, we get better throughout the year, we’re growth minded and there’s a lot of accountability, but no finger pointing.”

By the time Iowa takes the field on Friday, it will have been 13 days since their last match. The early loss at the Big Ten Tournament, although disappointing, allowed them a chance to rest, recharge and reset their focus with the season on the line from here on out.

“We got to actually compete in training for a week, and now that we know who we’re playing, we’re setting the tone for tactics and stuff, but we got an extra week of actual competition, teammate to teammate for a whole week,” said Greer. “You don’t get that throughout the season because you’re preparing for the next game, so I think it’s been really great for us. We’ve been able to get back to the basics of our program.”

“We are as healthy as we’ve been all year. Elle Wildman is back. Berit Parten is back to probably 90% right now, so we’re as healthy as we’re going to be.”

As the week continues on, the time for resting and recharging is over. The Hawkeyes are fully focused on preparing for their opponent, South Dakota State, who enters with a 13-2-6 record and a Summit League championship trophy. They’re 1-1 against teams in the 64-team field, but their loss to Kansas is more notable than their win over WAC champ Cal Baptist. The Jayhawks, who are a 3 seed and ranked 16th in the Top Drawer Top 25 snuck out a 1-0 win against the Jackrabbits, but needed their keeper to make saves in the 86th and 89th minute to avoid a draw. On the season, the SDSU defense has given up just 14 goals, ranking 22nd in the country in goals against average (0.67).

“South Dakota State is similar to Missouri State and Bucknell the last two years. When you win a lot, you’re used to winning, and they’ve done really well in that conference for a long time,” said Dilanni. “They’re very stingy in how they play and don’t give up very many goals. They’ve played some good teams, Kansas being one of them and Kansas had to grind out a 1-0 game.”

“They will not beat themselves, so we’re going to have to do things and find special moments inside the box to be able to loosen up the game…If we play the way we’re supposed to play and the way we’re used to playing, we should be able to advance, but the margin for error is small when you play a good team that wins a lot in their league.”

If the Hawkeyes advance past the Jackrabbits on Friday, they’ll very likely be headed to Nashville for a meeting with 4 seed LSU who faces Southland champion Houston Christian in their opening round match. The goal is to get back to the Sweet Sixteen and have another shot at breaking through to the Elite Eight, but Dave Dilanni says that this team in particular needs to focus on the present rather than looking ahead.

“The margin for error for this team can be small if we’re not doing what we need to do both offensively and defensively. When we make mistakes that we know we shouldn’t be making, we can get punished by good teams…We’re going to go game-by-game, weekend-by-weekend, but we like our draw, we like the teams in front of us. Let’s see if we get through Friday before we get to (talking about) next Thursday.”

A program that has accomplished a ton of firsts over the last half-decade, Dilanni says he speaks to the team about creating a legacy for themselves, both individually and as a team. No one remembers a team for what they did in the season-opener, but what they did in the final few games of the season.

“(I told them) the NCAA Tournament is when legacies and memories come alive, and you can create a whole new story for yourself as players, but also as a team,” said Dilanni. “It’s about making sure that they know those stories can go positively and negatively depending on whether you come ready to play (starting Friday).”

The opening round matchup between the Hawkeyes and Jackrabbits is set for 5:00pm CT on Friday night at the UI Soccer Complex. The match will be streamed on ESPN+.

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