The Golden Eagles came up short with the season on the line, so all that remains is playing the regular season finale.
Marquette women’s soccer didn’t get eliminated from the Big East tournament explicitly because of their 2-1 loss to #25 Xavier on Sunday afternoon.
Yes, that’s the game that officially pushed the Golden Eagles over the mathematical cliff and out of contention for the six team field. However, I’m pretty sure getting outscored 10-0 in three matches in a eight day span in the middle of league play had a lot more to do with MU staring down the barrel of needing to upset the #25 ranked team in the country in order to have a chance at getting a win in the regular season finale to hope that one of the six spots would still be available.
Not to mention the two 1-0 shutout losses to start Big East play.
You see the point here.
ANYWAY to a certain extent, Sunday’s outing at Valley Fields went better than expected. Xavier had five women with at least five goals scored coming into the match, and they were outshooting their opponents by nearly 13 shots per game as well. This had “mega-disaster” written all over it for Marquette, as MU is getting outshot on average even if they’re doing a pretty good job limiting the total number of shots.
And yet, Kate Gibson did this on Marquette’s first shot of the match in the 12th minute to make things interesting.
15′ | MU – 1 | XAVIER – 1
Gibson ties it up in the 12th minute pic.twitter.com/Gr1nTrYIg4
— MARQUETTE Soccer (@MarquetteWSOC) October 27, 2024
What was Xavier keeper Maria Galley doing way over there out of the net? NO IDEA, other than stopping a corner kick from happening because she had drifted that way and her teammate had passed her the ball.
It of course was not all good news, as Xavier had already taken a 1-0 lead in the 10th minute. Marquette managed to hold the tie together until halftime, but the Musketeers pounced on the Golden Eagles after the break, totaling up the first five shots out of the locker room. The fifth one found its way past Chloe Olson for the gamewinner, and the Musketeers made that one stand up after a little bit of bunkering to end the match.
Up Next: Marquette will put a lid on Chris Allen’s first season in charge of the program on Thursday night. They’ll do it on the road with a visit to Seton Hall, with first kick set for 5pm Central. The Pirates are 4-11-3 on the season and 1-6-2 in Big East play after taking a 1-0 road loss to UConn on Sunday.