Marquette was picked to finish fifth in the league by the coaches poll, but there’s some squishiness to that spot.
The Big East announced the preseason honors for women’s lacrosse in the 2025 season on Wednesday afternoon, and it’s a pretty good day for Marquette. Senior attacker Meg Bireley was named Big East Preseason Offensive Player of the Year.
I thought it was a pretty obvious choice when I made my preseason picks, but let me turn it over to the league’s press release for a second:
Marquette’s Bireley was a unanimous selection to the 2024 First Team All-BIG EAST and finished the season with 69 goals, the most of any player in the conference. She was also the only player to receive Attacker of the Week three times last season.
Okay, we can do better than that, Big East. Let’s go to the Marquette press release:
Bireley, from Glenville, Illinois, was a unanimous First Team All-BIG EAST selection in 2024 and finished the season with 69 goals, the most of any player in the conference and a Marquette single season record. She was the only player to receive Attacker of the Week three times last season. Bireley was also a unamimous selection to the Preseason All-BIG EAST Team.
Well, okay, maybe everybody can do better than that. Here’s what I wrote when I tabbed Bireley as the top offensive player in the conference heading into the season:
She led the league in goals and points per game last season. Meg Bireley was the only player in the entire league averaging more than 3.3 goals per game….. and she wrapped up the campaign at 4.06/game. She was one of four women averaging more than four points per game last season, and Bireley is the only one of the four who returns in 2025. Heck, she’s the only returning woman who averaged more than 3.6 points per game.
See? Wasn’t that hard.
Moving on to other Marquette-related information here, as you saw a second ago, Bireley was a unanimous pick for the preseason all-Big East team which has 17 women on it for some insane reason past just the note that there was ties in the voting. 12 women per team on the field at a time, 13 if you include a draw specialist, but sure, let’s get nuts and honor 17. I don’t know how to tell you this, Big East, but when you have nine unanimous selections to the all-conference team, it’s pretty clear that we’ve identified the players that the coaches think are the best in the league. I get that with just seven teams in the league, it’s hard to do a 13 player First Team and a 13 player Second Team, but let’s not be silly, either.
IN ANY CASE, Bireley is not Marquette’s only honoree on the all-Big East team. Junior attacker Tess Osburn made the list as well, and here’s what the MU press release put together for her:
Osburn, a Castle Rock, Colorado native, had 39 points last season, including 32 goals and seven assists. The junior attacker was selected to the All-BIG EAST Second Team last season.
SEE. SECOND TEAM. IT CAN BE DONE.
[ahem]
Marquette earned 18 points in the team voting, which means that the league’s coaches have collectively picked the Golden Eagles to finish fifth in the Big East this season. That means that, as a group, they don’t have Marquette as a postseason conference tournament team, but I think there’s some wiggle room here. Villanova landed at #3 with 24 points and Georgetown is at #4 with 22 points. There’s a dropoff from Marquette to Butler at #6 with 11 points, so it seems that there’s a least some debate over what the coaches think about 3 through 5.
As for the full team vote, Denver is the pick to win the Big East this season, but they are shockingly not a unanimous choice amongst the six coaches who could vote for the Pioneers, as you can’t vote for your own team. Denver’s Liza Kelly voted for either UConn or Villanova, as that’s where the other two first place votes went, but that means someone else voted for the other one. Denver has gone undefeated in Big East play in every campaign since 2019 onwards and enters the season with 32 consecutive regular season conference wins, so I don’t know why someone’s picking against them.
In other awards, UConn’s Riley Daly is the only other individual honoree, picking up Preseason Defensive Player of the Year. Not sure why the league veered off from naming a preseason goalkeeper of the year, but oh well. Daly was a unanimous pick for the First Team at the end of last season, so that seemed like a pretty obvious pick. Speaking of obvious picks, I went 12-for-13 in my Preseason All-Big East team picks, although the league tabbing 17 women did obviously make my life a little easier there in correctly identifying them. I did get every single one of the unanimous picks, so good job by me. My only miss was Xavier’s Lola Mancuso, and I refuse to apologize for not celebrating the woman who was fourth in the league in goals per game last season.
Let’s wrap up with the full rundown of the awards!
Big East Preseason Poll (First Place Votes)
- Denver (5) 35 pts
- UConn (1) 31
- Villanova (1) 24
- Georgetown 22
- Marquette 18
- Butler 11
- Xavier 6
Big East Preseason Offensive Player of the Year
Meg Bireley, Marquette, Sr., A
Big East Preseason Defensive Player of the Year
Riley Daly, UConn, Sr., D
Preseason All-Big East Team^
Abby Beran, UConn, So., D*
Riley Daly, UConn, Sr., D*
Rayea Davis, UConn, R-Jr., A*
Lauren Black, Denver, Sr., A
Emelia Bohi, Denver, Sr., GK
Caroline Colimore, Denver, Sr., M*
Ryan Dineen, Denver, Jr., A
Megan Klingenberg, Denver, Jr., D
Lily Athanas, Georgetown, Sr., D
Gracie Driggs, Georgetown, Jr., A
Maley Starr, Georgetown, Sr., M*
Meg Bireley, Marquette, Sr., A*
Tess Osburn, Marquette, Jr., A
Mary Moore, Villanova, So., M*
Sydney Pappas, Villanova, Sr., A*
Maddy Stoddard, Villanova, Sr., D
Emma Verhoest, Villanova, So., DS*
*denotes unanimous selection
^ extra player added due to tie in voting
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