The Golden Eagles needed points while visiting Xavier to stay in contention for a postseason berth, and they had to battle to get one on Saturday night.
Well, let’s just get straight to it: Here’s the foul that caused Matthew Iriarte’s second yellow card in the 28th minute of Saturday night’s Marquette men’s soccer match against Xavier.
and now, a fun game of “is this a yellow card on the Marquette player in black and blue”
— Anonymous Eagle (@anonymouseagle.bsky.social) 2024-10-20T11:55:51.893Z
If you want to argue that Iriarte lifted his leg for a trip as he fell, I can see your point, but he’s also rolling himself and that’s hard to say for certain. If you want to say that he went down before contact with the Xavier player coming through, I’m not sure that’s worthy of a card for flopping, either.
Here’s what I know for certain: The Marquette bench was assessed a yellow card as well at the same time as Iriarte’s second yellow card, so it certainly seems like head coach David Korn wasn’t a fan of the call.
In any case, that sent the Golden Eagles to 10 men for remaining 60-plus minutes in Cincinnati as they needed to stack up points in the Big East standings to stay steady in their search for one of the six at-large Big East tournament berths. At the time, shots in the match stood at 3 for Xavier and 2 for Marquette. The Golden Eagles would not manage another attempt for the rest of the second half as the Musketeers took advantage of MU scrambling to figure out how to play without Iriarte and fired off six shots of their own.
All told, by the end of 90 minutes, Xavier held a 15-4 shot advantage while Marquette was at 10 men….. and not a single solitary thing went in a net on either end. Marten Brink made four saves, all in the second half and the Golden Eagles ultimately caught a break before all the paperwork with a team save back in the 9th minute as Kyle Bebej was in position on the backside to tend to a slow bouncer that Brink never would have gotten to in time.
That means a scoreless draw, which moves Marquette to 2-2-1 in Big East action. Their seven points puts them into a tie with Creighton for second place in the Midwest Division, and a three-way tie for fourth in the quest for one of the six at-large spots on the conference tournament.
Up Next: Marquette will be down in Chicago for a Wednesday matinee for their first of two matches in the upcoming week. First kick against DePaul at Wish Field on Wednesday is set for 2pm Central because the Blue Demons don’t have lights and can’t play night games. DePaul is 5-6-2 overall and 1-3-1 in Big East action after a 4-0 home loss to #25 Akron on Saturday afternoon….. and the Zips happen to be Marquette’s opponent next Saturday.