The Golden Eagles grabbed hold of their visit to Ohio in the first quarter and held on to decisively beat the Bearcats to move to 3-0 on the year.
So far this season, Marquette women’s lacrosse has had a blowout win against an overmatched opponent and a nip and tuck win against a team that had already beaten a ranked foe this season. There’s another kind of win: Nothing fancy, nothing showy, just good solid lacrosse for 60 minutes that results in a clear definitive victory.
That was what we got from Marquette on Thursday afternoon in southwest Ohio. The Golden Eagles didn’t stomp down on Cincinnati, but they did grab a notable advantage early and kept the Bearcats from getting back into it. That’s what I’m talking about: Just good old fashioned going out and clearly winning a game. Your final score: Marquette 15, Cincinnati 9.
It didn’t look like it was going to go well to start. When head coach Meredith Black made the call on getting sophomore Mikayla Yang a start in net after 120 straight minutes of Brynna Nixon this season — We presume that Nixon is mostly fine, as she was in uniform — I don’t think that Black wanted to see the first shot of the game go past her goalie just 10 seconds into the game. It ended up being fine, because the next four goals all went for the Golden Eagles, including MU cashing in a pair of penalties for goals. 4-1 Marquette less than nine minutes in, and they added two more by the end of the period for a 6-3 lead after 15 minutes.
The last goal of the quarter might be the best goal of the game. MU induced a shot clock violation from the Bearcats with 20 seconds left in the period. Mary Velner scooped it up for the restart, and she started chugging towards midfield because there was space….. and there kept being space…… and she just kept on going….. and none of the Cincy defenders got in front of her…… and she walked right in to Hailey Darko’s doorstep and threw it in with three seconds left.
Goals slowed down in the second quarter, but MU scored two of the three in the period to expand their lead to four, 8-4, at intermission. The lead kept growing as Tess Osburn and Hanna Bodner sent home strikes to make it 10-4. That would end up being Marquette’s largest lead of the game, but you can make a six goal margin stand up if you buckle up and pay attention to details.
Cincinnati answered Bodner’s strike with the next two goals in the game, and MU countered that with being comfortable trading goals. Osburn tallied with 67 seconds left in the third for a 12-7 lead, and things started looking pretty solid as long as Marquette could get 15 more minutes like the first 45.
The Bearcats did get the first goal of the fourth quarter, but by the time they did, it had been over seven minutes since they had last scored. MU got the next two, with Bodner and Osburn wrapping up hat tricks….. and the goal from Osburn came with just barely over five minutes to go. Marquette had burned nearly seven minutes of clock out of the game, and the Bearcats were just out of time and down six, 14-8. One more goal from each side, with Meg Bireley getting her third goal in the final minute, and that was that. Nice, simple, tension free 15-9 win.
A big reason why it was tension free late? Cincinnati whiffed on all six free position attempts they had in the game. More importantly, Mikayla Yang posted a save on all six for the majority of her career high eight saves in the game. Can’t really ask for much more than “hey, win all six one-on-one duels in your first action of the year,” and that’s what Yang delivered.
Tess Osburn and Meg Bireley recorded identical five point days with three goals and two assists each. Hanna Bodner added one assist to get to four points off her hat trick. Nine different women had at least one point in the game, and eight different women scored a goal. Pretty good all around stuff from Marquette here.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+?
Up Next: The good news is that Marquette has matched the best start in program history with this third straight win to start the year. The bad news is that it’s going to be extremely hard to get that fourth straight win. On Sunday, Marquette will be in Ann Arbor to face #8 Michigan. First draw is scheduled for 11am Central, and B1G+ will have the streaming broadcast. The Wolverines moved to 2-1 on the season with a 19-5 shelling of Central Michigan on Wednesday evening.