First Place: Marquette 13, St. John’s 8

The Golden Eagles come out on top in the Big East opener for both teams and extend their overall winning streak to four in a row.

At the end of the day, the 13-8 margin in the Big East opener for Marquette men’s lacrosse feels like it was a solidly controlled game for the Golden Eagles, resulting in a four game winning streak for head coach Jake Richard, not to mention his first Big East win as the top man.

What it actually was, however, was a tightly contested game against St. John’s that could easily have gone the other way even deep into the fourth quarter.

Things looked pretty solid for Marquette as they took a lead late in the first quarter, a lead that they would ultimately never relinquish. Nolan Rappis and Noah Snyder tallied goals in the final four minutes to make it 4-2 Marquette after 15 minutes, and that was a welcome sight after St. John’s responded to MU going up 2-0 with two goals of their own. That included a goal on the first man-up situation of the game.

Matt Caputo put Marquette up 6-3 before five minutes went off the board in the second quarter, and I suspect that if you ask him, he’s not entirely sure how he got the ball to go in the net other than STJ goalie Patrick Scarborough also had no idea where the ball was going and when.

The scoring slowed waaaaaay way down after that, with Marquette ending up holding an 8-5 lead at halftime as the two teams traded goals the rest of the way. They kept right on trading goals in the third quarter, which ended up favoring St. John’s by a 2-1 margin. 9-7 Marquette as the fourth frame started, and after six goals in the first 20 minutes, Marquette had scored just one time in over 17 minutes as the last quarter of the game started.

That turned into 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 minutes with just one goal for the Golden Eagles. Things weren’t derailing because Lucas Lawas was holding up his end of things on the other end. Five saves in the third quarter for MU’s goalie helped hold the Johnnies to just two goals, and he tacked on two more stops in the first few minutes of the fourth quarter. At some point, the dam was going to break though. That’s the nature of lacrosse, even the best goalies struggle to stop even 60% of shots on goal.

So, finally, Jake Bair did Lawas a favor. Just loaded up his stick up top and blasted a goal in the net for a 10-7 lead.

A three goal margin is much better than a two goal margin, and a pair of St. John’s turnovers combined with another save from Lawas kicked the can down the road and burned clock off for the Golden Eagles. Bobby O’Grady’s goal with 3:27 to play was probably the dagger, pushing the game to 11-7, and even though STJ got a man-up goal after that, they never truly challenged Marquette again, especially after Carsen Brandt potted two goals in the final 90 seconds to make that margin look a lot more comfy than it was for long stretches on Saturday.

Carsen Brandt had the assist on O’Grady’s late goal, so those late goals pushed him to a team high six points on four goals and two assists. That beat out O’Grady’s day, as he had four goals as well but only one helper. Matt Caputo and Jake Bair were MU’s only other multi-point guys, with both men putting up a goal and an assist. Lucas Lawas finished with nine saves on the day to record Marquette’s first Big East victory since April 8, 2023.

How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FloSports?

Up Next: Marquette will get their second straight Big East home game when Georgetown comes to the Valley next week Saturday. First draw is set for Noon Central, and FloSports will have the streaming broadcast. That will be a showdown for first place in the league after the Hoyas toppled Providence 14-13 at home on Saturday to move to 6-3 overall this year.