Brink Makes Milovanov’s Goal Stand Up In Win Over Yale

The Golden Eagles only needed one goal and four saves to remain perfect on the season.

Changing the venue away from Valley Fields didn’t have any impact on Marquette men’s soccer’s ability win a match on Friday evening, as an early goal from Justin Milovanov was enough to propel the Golden Eagles to a 1-0 win over Yale. The win moves Marquette to 3-0-0 on the season, which is also David Korn’s record as head coach.

Relative to how it all turned out at the end, shots were coming fast and furious in the early goings of the match, perhaps because the two sides hadn’t quite figured out what the other may or may not be doing. Milovanov’s goal scoring strike came in the middle of the opening volleys, and he found the back of the net from distance in the 21st minute of action:

It’s a great bit of staying active as the defense tries to move the ball up the field as Milovanov dispossesses the Yale player as he’s pulling in a pass. It’s also great awareness by Milovanov to realize that the sudden change of possession has left him with space to shoot as well as throwing the Yale defense in a momentary disarray. It’s hard to say for sure whether or not MU would have been able to turn that into a better opportunity, but Milovanov definitely made the most of it.

That was in the 21st minute, and MU’s Antonio Costabile fired off what turned into the final shot of the first half in the 29th minute. Like I said: Early flurries of official attempts, not so much as things went along. That left shots at 4-3 favoring Marquette at intermission, and as the match moved to the second half, MU’s interest in pushing forward diminished a little bit as the minutes ticked closer to the end as they defended their 1-0 lead. In fact, Lucas Nesthus’s shot in the 64th minute was 1) The first shot by either team after halftime and 2) Marquette’s final official shot of the match.

Yale kept coming though, of course they did, and they popped off four shots the rest of the way in search of an equalizer. They were pretty good attempts, and freshman netminder Marten Brink had to make saves on two of them to bring his match total to four in order to post his second shutout of the season. With the blank sheet here, Brink has played every minute for Marquette and only allowed a penalty kick goal as the only mark against him so far in 2024.

Up Next: The Golden Eagles will be returning to Wisconsin after their trip out east, but their next match still won’t be at home. On Monday, Marquette will be out west on I-94 to square off with Wisconsin. The Badgers are 3-0-0 as well on the season after beating Illinois-Chicago 5-1 on Thursday night in Madison. All but one of those six goals came in the first 40 minutes against the Flames, so the Golden Eagles will have to be ready to go from the jump.