Marquette Holds Okafor Scoreless, But Not UConn

The Huskies scored three while the Golden Eagles stymied the top goal scorer in the Big East

Not gonna lie to you, didn’t watch a second of this one.

Here’s the deal: Marquette volleyball was having a reasonably competitive match with Villanova that started an hour before this women’s soccer contest against Connecticut. So, I stuck with the volleyball as the soccer got started…… and then when I turned on the soccer, it was 2-0 UConn with about 17 minutes left in the first half.

Okay, but that’s not the whole story, right? Yeah, the whole story is that Marquette had attempted the first shot of the match back in the fourth minute…. and they were still stuck on that one shot after 27 minutes or whatever it was. Sorry, the clock counts down on the broadcast and math is hard. Given that Marquette is not-actually-hilariously offensively challenged, I passed on watching anything further because, y’know, for what?

You wanna see UConn’s goals from their 3-0 win over Marquette? Okay.

Here’s Abbey Jones in the 16th minute, and I count at least two very big Marquette over-pursuits where more conservative defensive choices might have stopped this one from happening.

Here’s Lucy Cappadonna in the 27th minute, making use of everything on the field on a corner kick. At least Chloe Olson didn’t get hurt on her collision with the post.

And here’s Abbey Jones again, this time in the 64th minute. I don’t have interesting commentary here.

One thing you did not read here? Chioma Okafor’s name. Marquette held the top goal scorer in the Big East to just two shots in 75 minutes and nary a point on the day. Abbey Jones had seven shots to get to her two goals, so it’s not a total win, but at least MU can say that something went reasonably well here….. presuming that shutting off Okafor’s offense was in the game plan.

Up Next: Marquette’s next shot at their second Big East win of the season comes on Thursday when they welcome Villanova to the Valley for a 7pm Central time start. The Wildcats went to a second straight draw on Sunday afternoon, tying 2-2 at home with St. John’s to move to 1-1-3 in Big East action.