IOWA CITY — No. 4 Iowa Hawkeye field hockey unleashed another offensive barrage Sunday, crushing Ball State 8-0 at Grant Field behind hat tricks from Dionne van Aalsum and Fréderique van Cleef.
The demolition came just two days after Iowa obliterated Lehigh 9-0 in its home opener, giving the Hawkeyes 17 goals in two games while not allowing a single shot on goal.
Van Aalsum wasted little time getting Iowa rolling against Ball State.
She struck just 2:11 into the match with an unassisted goal, her fifth of the season.
Reine van Hoof doubled the lead late in the first quarter, finishing an assist from Emily Edwards at the 12:19 mark for her second goal of the year.
Van Cleef then joined the scoring frenzy, firing home an unassisted goal at 14:27 to push Iowa’s advantage to 3-0 before the first quarter had ended.
Téa Fortpied made it 4-0 in the second quarter, scoring her first goal of the season off a penalty corner with assists from Rachel Herbine and Amber Millard-Smith.
Iowa carried that four-goal cushion into halftime.
Hawkeyes explode after halftime
Any hope Ball State had of getting back into the game disappeared almost immediately after the break.
Van Aalsum scored again at 31:07, converting a feed from Millard-Smith for her sixth goal of the season.
Twenty-eight seconds later, van Cleef struck.
Jordan Byers delivered the assist, and van Cleef buried her second goal of the afternoon to make it 6-0.
Van Aalsum completed her hat trick at 34:32 with an unassisted goal, pushing her season total to seven.
Then it was van Cleef’s turn.
She capped the scoring at 39:20 with another unassisted tally, completing her own hat trick and raising her season total to eight goals.
The Hawkeyes spent the remainder of the afternoon protecting the shutout and finished off one of their most dominant weekends of the season.
Van Cleef stays red hot
Van Cleef has now recorded hat tricks in back-to-back games.
She also scored three times and added two assists in Friday’s 9-0 destruction of Lehigh.
Van Cleef and van Aalsum have combined for 15 Iowa goals already this season, emerging as a devastating one-two scoring punch for the fourth-ranked Hawkeyes.
Iowa’s defense was just as ruthless during the weekend.
Neither Lehigh nor Ball State managed a shot on goal against the Hawkeyes.
The two shutouts followed Iowa’s impressive opening weekend, when the Hawkeyes knocked off No. 2 North Carolina to complete a perfect weekend against two top-10 opponents.
Up next
Iowa returns to action Friday, September 11, against Miami (Ohio) in Evanston, Illinois.
The match is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Central time and will be streamed on B1G+.