It’s been almost three years since Iowa soccer last participated in the Big Ten Tournament.

Senior and team captain Karly Stuenkel was on that team, and after a two-year absence from the tournament, she hopes to be on another tournament team before she hangs up her Hawkeye uniform.

Her desire to give the Hawkeyes the last push they need to get in has shown in her play on the field. She has scored 4 goals in her last five games, including what turned out to be the game-winning goal against Purdue on Sunday.

With Stuenkel’s Iowa career quickly coming to a conclusion, this season provides a little more motivation for her.

“You don’t really realize until senior year that this is all going to end very soon,” she said. “So that’s motivation but also that we do have the potential and we should be in the tournament. I think these last couple games to extend our season have been huge motivation.”

While Stuenkel might have the hot foot now, this season hasn’t always been an easy one for the senior mid-fielder.

Coming off a year in which she was awarded as Iowa’s offensive player of the year for the second time running, expectations were high for the Illinois native. But in her first 10 games, nothing that came off the foot of Stuenkel found the white netting of the goal.

“I really think this season I started off slow offensively,” Stuenkel said. “As the season progressed, I think I just started figuring it out, and knew what I needed to do, and what my role was, and being in the right place at the right time.”

Whatever the case, the Hawkeyes are 3-2 during Stuenkel’s hot streak, and the recent success has Iowa’s five-year senior Corey Burns thinking this team is better than the 2014 Hawkeyes, the last group to participate in the Big Ten Tournament.

“That [2014] team was very good, but I think this team has more talent,” Burns said. “We connect more on the field, and we play much better soccer. It’s very controlled now.”

This Iowa team may or may not have more talent than three years ago, but right now, the biggest difference between those two teams is the playoffs, and while the 2017 Iowa soccer team is far from out of the playoffs, it sits one spot out of a slot in the tourney.

That makes the last three games for Iowa of paramount importance, but they are not going to be easy.

Nebraska, which Iowa will play at 7 p.m. today at the Iowa Soccer Complex, and Wisconsin (Oct. 21 at 7 p.m., also at the Iowa Soccer Complex), are teams also vying for spots in the tourney, which should make for some good soccer.