9 November B1G Tournament Final

As the Hawkeye semi-final match against the Ohio State Buckeyes ended in an Iowa victory, Ie turned to Tracy Fuchs, the Northwestern coach who was sitting next to me with her assistants and I could not resist a bit of bravado. “See you at the showdown, Coach,” I remarked. That was on a late sunny afternoon on Friday. The scene was very different late Sunday morning before the final match. At the Hawkeye tailgate in the huge almost deserted football stadium car park, a handful of intrepid Iowa fans shivered in the 30-degree Fahrenheit weatherunder the little Hawkeye pavilion; one corner was tied to my little Fiat lest it blow away. They were the parents of Rachel Herbine, Mia Magnotta, Jordan Byers, along with your stalwart reporter, soon joined by Felicia Zonnenberg’s dad who had flown all the way from the Netherlands to see his daughter play. I enjoyed sharing impressions of European and American NCAA hockey with him, lamenting how after graduation most of our players never again touch a hockey stick. In the stands, we were joined by some Iowa staff, athletic directors Beth Goetz and Joe Parker, a regular seatmate. It was most gratifying to see them come all this way to watch.

The Hawkeyes had lost 1-3 to the Wildcats in early October, but so had everyone else in Division 1 except Princeton, who had won 3-2 with drag-flicker Beth Yeager along with half the British U21 team wearing orange and black shirts (the other half wear Harvard crimson). Iowawould be facing the formidable forward line of Olivia Bent-Cole, Ashley Sessia, and Grace Shultz (ex-Princeton), along with midfielder Maddie Zimmer—Sessa and Zimmer
played in 2024 on the US National Team in the Olympics. 

In the first minute Bent-Cole penetrated the Iowa scoring circle and took a shot at the Iowa goal, saved by goalkeeper Magnotta. The momentum remained entirely with the ’Cats, constantly threatening the Hawkeye goal. Fortunately, the Iowa backs were excellent, especially the captain Milly Short, going 1v1 against Ashley Sessa. Three more times the Northwestern forwards enjoyed shooting opportunities. Sessa’s first in the fifth minute went wide, her second at twelve minutes was saved by the GK, and Shultz’s shot under a minute later went wide. The Hawks were mostly on the back foot, though they managed to threaten briefly in the ninth minute, but were unable to get a shot off. Later watching the replay of the quarter ending, I noticed a very sour expression on the face of Iowa Coach Lisa. 
In the second quarter Northwestern got their first penalty corner. Sessa injected as she had so often for the national team and Tromp took a shot that bounced up and Shultz took a whack at but it was ruled dangerous and the ’Cats got another go. This time Tromp tried a low dragflicker but Magnotta made the save. As the quarter approached the half-way mark Iowa finally managed to attack the Northwestern circle. A bad pass gave the ball back to the ’Cats. Iowa withstood the attack and with four minutes to go van Cleef got into the Wildcat circle with the first Iowa shot on goal, easily saved by the goalkeeper. The Hawks continued to press but were unable to make an effective circlepenetration leading to a shot. The battle continued in midfield till at the last minute the unstoppable Maddie Zimmer ran the ball up field and along the backline, passing to Sessa, whose shot flew wide. Iowa countered with a pass into the Northwestern circle by Zonnenberg but without effect. So the half ended, with score apparently even at nil-nil but the Wildcats totally in charge of the match, with ten shots on the Iowa goal while the Hawkeyes managed but one on their opponents.  
As a devoted follower of the US national team, I was anything but unfamiliar with what to do when barely holding your own against much stronger opposition, like USA against the Netherlands. Hold on, defend your circle tenaciously, and hope for a mistake by the other side which gives you a chance to score. I knew that does happen, but not usually and against a top team only rarely. 

Any hope that such passive tactics could work for the Hawkeyes in the second half was blown away in the first 25 seconds when Ashley Sessa took the ball into scoring circle and passed to Grace Schultz, who fired it into the Iowa goal. Watching Sessa play is such a pleasure that one almost forgets she plays for the opposition. It was awesome to see her later in the quarter air dribble into the circle past two Hawk defenders and then dive onto the turf to push the ball towards the goal. Her match-ups with Iowa’s Gia Whalen were especially poignant for like so many field hockey players they come from the same Philadelphia suburbs and were teammates on the same club. Iowa did not remain passive. Van Cleef managed a shot that bounced off the side of the Wildcat goal, and van Aalsum made a circle penetration with no result. But the momentum remained with ’Cats—quite literally as in the last seconds of the quarter Zimmer powered into the circle and passed to Bent-Cole, who shot but Magnotta made the save. But the end of the quarter there were snow flurries. It was definitely late, both for the season and for the Hawks.

At the start of the final quarter van Aalsum penetrated the Northwestern circle with no shot. Then the ’Cats redoubled their attack. Sessa weaved her way into the Iowa circle but her shot went wide. Then Bent-Cole demonstrated her skill at evading defenders and got a Northwestern PC. As the Wildcats lined up around the Iowa circle I thought back to our match against them last month in Iowa City and had a premonition of what would happen next—and it did. As we had been walking up to the field from the car park, Mr Zonnenberg and I were conversing about drag flicks and why so few American players can execute them. Now we saw an import from the Netherlands in action. Sessa made a perfect injection to Ilse Tromp’s stopper, Maddie Zimmer, and then Tromp executed a perfect drag flick, high into the net to the right of Magnotta—unstoppable. The ’Cats had their insurance goal. But they were not through and gave us another demonstration of skill with Zimmer again making an irresistible attack, this time along the backline, and passing to Sessa, who was waiting at the goal-mouth and added a third goal to the score.

Iowa had done well. After the disappointment at Penn State, they won six matches in a row, five against strong teams, Rutgers, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, and in the tournament Indiana and again Ohio State, unquestionably second best team in the B1G and amongst the top ten in the country. But Northwestern, with US National Team players Sessa and Zimmer and the Dutch drag flicker Tromp, were simply on another level.