Kent State women’s field hockey (4-5) lost both of its games on the road this weekend.

The Flashes took on the top ranked University of Iowa (5-2) on Saturday and lost 5-1.

“We made a couple mistakes right off the bat and we went down 2-0 and then we settled in a little bit and played our game,” coach Kyle Desandes-Moyer said.

The Flashes’ allowed two first quarter goals, scored by sophomore defender Anthe Nijsiel and junior forward Maddy Murphy.

Kent’s only goal came in the second period and was scored by freshman forward Claudia Ortiz.

“I think the final score wasn’t super indicative of the game,” Desandes-Moyer said. “We had seven shots, they had 13 and we had two penalty corners and they had three.”

Despite the end result, the two teams had pretty similar shots, saves and penalty corner statistics throughout the matchup. 

The Flashes were then shut out by the University of Michigan (5-2) by a final score of 4-0 on Sunday afternoon.

Kent had a rough day offensively only taking three total shots compared to Michigan’s 23.

“Michigan is a really talented team and we knew we were going to play a defensive game and we just had a little bit of difficulty possessing the ball in our attacking end,” Desandes-Moyer said.

The Flashes only had one penalty corner opportunity compared to the Wolverines’ seven. 

“We played a pretty physical game against a pretty gritty opponent, so that was nice to see,” Desandes-Moyer said. 

Michigan’s four goals came in the second and fourth periods and were scored by junior midfielder Kayla Reed, sophomore midfielder Sofia Southam, and senior midfielder/back Guadalupe Fernandez Lacort.

“It was great having Mary (Crumlish) being able to step in the goal today and get some experience before we go to MAC play,” Desandes-Moyer said.

Senior goalie Crumlish recorded ten saves for the Flashes on the afternoon.

“We need to take the game play this weekend that went well for us and what we learned this weekend and do that at a high pace and set the tone and standard next weekend against Ohio,” Desandes-Moyer said.

Kent will be back in action Saturday, Sept. 28 to open up Mid-American Conference play at home at 12 p.m. against Ohio University (4-2).

Contact Kathryn Rajnicek at [email protected].