On the 32nd goal of Marquette women’s lacrosse’s matchup against Detroit Mercy, senior attacker Meg Bireley assisted sophomore attacker Riley Schultz with a pass from far outside the net. Schultz jumped, grabbed the pass, spun and shot to bring Marquette up 23-9.
With that, Bireley positioned herself alone atop all other Marquette point leaders before her — surpassing blue and gold legend Shea Garcia’s 220 all-time points record.
Along with Bireley’s performance, hat tricks from five different players on the Marquette squad and out-draw-controlling Detroit Mercy 4-1 gave the Golden Eagles (5-3) the win over the Titans (3-5) 24-10 at home Sunday afternoon.
“We were in control of the ball every single draw,” MU head coach Meredith Black said. “That helped us have possession, and now we have our possessions which, especially at the start of the game, weren’t perfect.
“They weren’t our best by any means, but to have the ball versus to not have it gave us a big advantage because they’re a great team, and they were scoring on their possessions early on.”
Senior midfielder Lorelai VanGuilder, the team’s go-to draw specialist, gathered a career-high nine draws in the win.
Early MU adjustments make a big difference
Marquette tried to start out at, as Black calls it, “100 P,” but the switching-woman zone defense that Detroit Mercy threw on the Golden Eagles gave them troubles early and resulted in inefficient shooting. In the first 15 minutes, Marquette shot 16 times with only five goals to show for it. Detroit Mercy shot five to earn three goals.
Detroit Mercy’s goalie Meredith Leavell wasn’t giving the Golden Eagles any breaks either. In the first five minutes, she made three saves.
“We had a little bit of a slow start,” Bireley said. “So, we just focused on still going full speed and sticking to our game plan and once we did that, we found a lot of success.”
Marquette finally broke away from the back and forth goal scoring when senior attacker Campbell Brown closed out the first quarter with a point-blank range goal after grabbing a long pass from first-year attacker Tessa Boehm. This put the Golden Eagles up 5-3 with 43 seconds left to play in the first quarter.
Out of the next 12 goals that would be scored, nine would be Marquette’s. Going into the second half, the score was 14-6 in favor of the Golden Eagles. They outshot Detroit 29-9 to finish the first half with a eight-point lead.
Golden Eagles close out game as Bireley makes history
In the third quarter, Detroit scored first and went goal for goal with Marquette for the first 10 minutes. This would be the last effort that Detroit put forth to try and grab the win.
The Golden Eagles didn’t wait long to turn on the burners again. It went on an 11-2 run of goals that lasted until the end of the matchup and sealed Marquette’s win.
While in the midst of the Golden Eagles icing the game, Bireley became the all-time points leader in Marquette history (221).
Meg Bireley is now the all-time points leader in Marquette history, passing Shea Garcia with her career-high tying eighth point of the day today and 221st point of her career! pic.twitter.com/YDeZsV1uCh
— Marquette Women’s Lacrosse (@MarquetteWLax) March 16, 2025
“It’s really crazy,” Bireley said. “I’ve never imagined myself to be in this position when I think back to my freshman year to now. It makes me so grateful for everyone I’ve been on a team with, especially this year and all the years I’ve been here. I couldn’t do it without them and they helped me so much to get here.”
The Glenview, Illinois native matched the all-time goal scoring record (175) with four minutes left in the game, but after that, she was sidelined and didn’t have the opportunity to break it.
Meg ties the all-time goals mark with her 175th goal of her career!! pic.twitter.com/RCFjvEpbDi
— Marquette Women’s Lacrosse (@MarquetteWLax) March 16, 2025
“I’m not a big record person,” Black said. “I mean it’s great, Meg’s amazing and I’m happy for her — I don’t think about that though when I’m coaching. In fact, most times I don’t even know they’re happening. This one I did know, but it’s not going to change the way sub, so it was her time to come out.”
In the middle on the third quarter, sophomore Mikayla Yang took over at goalie and halfway through the fourth, junior Ava Sprinkel got her first minutes in goal this season.
With the win today, senior goalie Brynna Nixon became the all-time wins leader, earning the 25th of her career.
Up next
Marquette will travel to Indianapolis, Indiana to face Butler (0-5) in its Big East opener March 22. Tip-off is scheduled for 11 a.m. CST on FloCollege.
“We don’t want to over-hype any game more than the next,” Black said. “We’ve been working on that all season. But at the same time, it is Big East play now. So, we will build off momentum of things we’ve done well all non-conference season, not just in this game, but all games and making some fixes to anything that’s not looking as good as it should this week will be important.
“Mentality-wise, we’ll treat it like we’re trying to treat every game: it’s us versus us and how we’re going to get better.”
This recap was written by Benjamin Hanson. He can be reached at benjamin.hanson@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @benhansonMU.