The South Dakota State soccer team traveled to Iowa for a pair of games this past weekend, one against the Iowa Hawkeyes and one against the Drake Bulldogs. Their game against Iowa Friday night was canceled due to a thunderstorm, but they were able to achieve a winning record going for the season with a 2-1 win over Drake Sunday.

The Iowa game was actually able to get underway, but was delayed after about 10 minutes after a lightning strike was reported within 10 miles of the field. After about a half hour, the two teams resumed play and made it to around the 25-minute mark before the pouring rain forced them to call the game. Neither team had scored when the game was called.

 “I thought we had the better of the play,” SDSU Head Coach Lang Wedemeyer said. “We had a couple decent chances, so it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t get the game in.”

 Wedemeyer said the teams discussed continuing the game on Saturday, but that logistically did not work for the Rabbits.

 “We talked about moving it to the next day but we had to travel to prepare for Drake, and there was a chance of storms that morning as well,” Wedemeyer said. “So we decided to cancel it with the idea of potentially making it up later in the season and planning on playing each other in coming years.”

SDSU beat Drake 2-1 Sunday at Drake Stadium in Des Moines. Though the Jacks and Bulldogs have faced off for several years, this was the first time they played in the same venue that hosts the Drake Relays.

“The turf is old and beat down, and it created a scrappy game,” Wedemeyer said. “I thought we handled that very well at times.”

The Bulldogs took 16 shots to the Jacks’ 12, but the Jackrabbits succeeded in finding the back of the net.

Senior Alyssa Brazil scored an early goal with an assist from senior Diana Potterveld, starting off the scoring for the Jacks.

Drake tied the score at the end of the first half with a goal from junior Kayla Armstrong, but the Jacks came out strong in the second half and took the advantage near the 52-minute mark, as junior Madison Yueill scored the game-winning goal off a penalty kick. It was the second penalty kick goal for Yueill this season.

“I thought we played very well at the beginning of the halves, particularly in the second half, when we drew the penalty kick to get the second goal,” Wedemeyer said. “I thought we were still a little inconsistent through the course of the game, but we found a way to win after a tough road trip.”

Junior goalie Nicole Inskeep moved into a seventh place tie in career saves in program history with 11 in the game.

The Jacks record now stands at 2-1 on the year. They travel to face the University of Missouri-Kansas City on Friday, then make a stop on their way north to face Creighton in Omaha.

“UMKC is a pretty good team that beat Drake 1-0 earlier in the season, for whatever that’s worth. They play a lot like we do with similar formation and a similar style of play and quick,” Wedemeyer said. “Creighton will be interesting; they have a new coach there for the first time in program history on the women’s side, so it’ll be interesting to see how their style and what they do changes compared to teams