EAST LANSING – As postseason play is now in full swing, the No. 12 and top-seeded Michigan State Spartans hosted the eighth seeded Iowa Hawkeyes for the opening quarter-final round of the Big Ten tournament. In a shocking upset, Iowa downed Michigan State 2-1 to advance in the tournament.
Iowa will now play two seed Penn State in Columbus on Nov. 2 in the semifinal match, as the Spartans now await to find out their matchup for the NCAA tournament.
Just one week ago, MSU and Iowa played in the final game of the regular season, a match in which MSU would knock off Iowa by a score of 3-0. This time around, Iowa was just simply the better team.
“Their [Iowa] intensity was really hard for us to match,” MSU head coach Jeff Hosler said. “I thought from the opening whistle they were the more physical, more aggressive team. I think their mentality coming out of halftime to take the game to us, I don’t think we responded very well.”
Iowa came out of the gate very aggressive and played a different style of soccer than it had previously played against MSU. Much of the first half was spent on the Spartan’s side of the field, with the Iowa offense putting pressure on the Spartan defense consistently.
However, it would be Michigan State who would go into halftime with the lead, courtesy of sophomore midfielder Emerson Sargeant netting a goal in the forty-second minute.
The MSU lead would not last long however, as Iowa came out swinging in the second half, netting a goal just five minutes into the half. Senior forward Kelli McGroarty would be the one to have the equalizer for the Hawkeyes, giving all the momentum right back to them.
Five minutes later, freshman midfielder Sofia Bush scored for Iowa, giving the Hawkeyes the lead and putting the Spartans in a hole.
Michigan State had opportunities to score later in the match, notably two shots by senior midfielder Justina Gaynor that both went just narrowly past the goalpost.
As the clock ticked towards the 90-minute mark, Iowa was the team that came out on top.
“How fragile postseason soccer is,” Hosler said. “There was a nine minute spell that we kind of switched off, and that’s the difference in the result today.”
Michigan State will now wait until the bracket release on Monday, Nov. 6 to find out who their next opponent will be.
“The silver lining to this is that we get two weeks to prepare,” Hosler said. “We get a whole week to truly focus on ourselves. We will find out next Monday who that opponent is and have a few more days to prepare for that opponent successfully.”
