Locker Keeps The Milwaukee Cup With Marquette

When you hold the Cup, you only have to go to a draw to keep it, and that’s what Locker made happen in the second half.

Before Tuesday night at Valley Fields, freshman Grant Locker had 59 total minutes played across three matches in his Marquette men’s soccer career. He had attempted just one shot.

None of that mattered on Tuesday night, as he was in the right place and the right time for a quick reaction volley in the 82nd minute.

It was one of three shots on the night for Locker on a night where Marquette outshot Milwaukee 16-11 thanks to a 13-4 pouring on in the second half. That goal by Locker, the first of his collegiate career, was exactly what Marquette needed at exactly the right time. That leveled the match at one goal each, and a bit more than nine minutes later, MU had gone to a 1-1 draw with Milwaukee. As a result, here in the 50th edition of the Milwaukee Cup, the traveling trophy for this crosstown rivalry series stays with the Golden Eagles. In fact, Locker’s equalizer helps Marquette tie their longest ever streak of holding the Cup at three consecutive seasons.

It was starting to look like Milwaukee would head back to the east side with the Cup, though. Yes, Marquette had a big ol’ shot advantage in the second half, but at least a little bit of that was because Milwaukee scored a goal in the 35th minute on their way to a 7-3 shot advantage in the first half. The Panthers caught a break by way of VAR, as this play was originally called offside on the field, but a (kind of long, actually) trip to the replay monitor reversed the call and gave Mesfin Roda a goal and Milwaukee a 1-0 lead.

Gotta say, that certainly seems like the right call. Yeah, we’re not looking at it at a head on angle to determine if everyone was behind a defender at the time of any passes, but it certainly appears that the last touch before Roda’s strike to score was off the Marquette defender. I’m no rules expert, but I don’t think you can be declared offside if you kick the ball after 1) the keeper deflects a shot 2) to one of his field defenders who knocks it right out in front of you. If that’s not factually the case, then spiritually, it feels like that can’t be offsides under any circumstances.

By the way, the Marquette keeper in question? Cameron Simpson, making his second start of the season in place of Martin Brink. I have to say that Brink seemed ready to go on the sideline during the match, so this certainly seems like a head coach David Korn decision than anything forced onto the Golden Eagles by way of injury. Simpson made two saves, both in the first half, to keep the Golden Eagles on track to have a chance to pull a result out of the match one way or another.

Up Next: This match was the official end to non-conference play for Marquette, so it’s nothing but Big East contests the rest of the way down. Next on the list is Providence, and the Golden Eagles will be at home at Valley Fields for that one starting at 1pm Central time on Saturday, October 12th. The Friars are 6-4-2 on the year and 1-1-1 in Big East action after a 2-1 home loss to Syracuse on Tuesday night.