The last meeting resulted in a 1-0 Hawkeye victory, but the team heading into the tournament is not the same team Iowa saw in September.

“Our team defense has improved, moving up and down the field as a unit,” sophomore forward Abby Barker said.

The defense for MSU is one of the reasons the Spartans believe they can come away with the trophy, as every Big Ten loss, except one, has been a one-goal deficit.

Not only will the Spartan defense be a new look for the Hawkeyes, but head coach Helen Knull has a list of improvements Iowa will see for the first time on Thursday.

“(Sophomore midfielder) Becky Stiles was gone at the Junior Pan-Ams, we made some positional changes in our backfield and our overall execution in corners has improved (since the first meeting),” Knull said.

Knull also added having Stiles back on the team will give the Spartans confidence, as she is the “quarterback” of the team in that she sets the tempo on offense and defense.

Although the changes within the team are big, the stakes are as well.

With nine losses on the year, and only 16 teams getting an invite to the NCAA Tournament, the Spartans find themselves in an uphill battle to score an invite to the Big Dance.

“To get an at-large … in my mind we will have to make the finals … because by then we would have beaten Penn State (in the second round) and Iowa,” Knull said.

The Spartans face a tough challenge, but it’s nothing that the team will shy away from. A full head of confidence is what MSU will be carrying into the tournament, despite coming off of a 6-1 loss to Penn State.

“Fifty-five minutes of (the Penn State) game we played well; we let up four of those goals in seven minutes,” Knull said. “We had mental lapses and poor errors, but now that it is tournament time, it’s we lose and we’re done.”

Sophomore forward Allie Ahern agrees that the team will be as confident as ever, but also acknowledged an improvement that needs to come into place before the first game is under way.

“We just have to trust each other and make quick passes, and not go internal and do it all ourselves,” Ahern said. “We had really good practice yesterday, and scored four or five goals during the scrimmage, so we are pretty confident.”

The Spartans play the first game of the Big Ten Tournament at 11 a.m. on Thursday in Iowa City, Iowa.