The Golden Eagles are 2-0 after a 13-10 win over the Cardinals at Valley Fields.
Based on what we had seen from Louisville in their first three games of the season — nothing but close games, a 1-1 record against ranked foes — it certainly seemed like Monday afternoon at Valley Fields would turn out to be an interesting litmus test of both where Marquette women’s lacrosse is this early in the season as well as what the Golden Eagles could be in 2025.
It’ll be a while before we can really tell for certain, I suppose, but it’s hard to say that MU did anything but pass that litmus test. The Golden Eagles bounced back from letting a quick early 3-0 lead slip out of their hands and played back-and-forth lacrosse the rest of the way with the visiting Cardinals to end up with a 13-10 victory and a 2-0 mark on the season.
It was Marquette early, with Lauren Grady starting the scoring less than a minute in and Tess Osburn making it 3-0 with a pair of strikes — one on a free position on a penalty — before the 10 minute mark. However, it was 4-3 MU at the end of the first quarter and 5-4 Louisville as Negai Nakazawa got her first goal of the game with 7:28 to go in the second period to put a cap on a 5-1 UL run. Meg Bireley got her second goal of the day to tie it at 5, and Abigail Cole tallied for the visitors to make it 6-5 as the clock wandered under the five minute mark of the first half.
It’s possible that Marquette’s close of the first half and start of the second may have been the pivotal point of the game. Bireley sent home a Hanna Bodner feed on the power play for her third goal less than a minute after Cole scored, and Sarah Beth Burns struck with just over two minutes left in the half to make it 7-6 Marquette. That was Marquette’s first lead since the second quarter started at 4-3 Golden Eagles. Bireley came up big 45 seconds into the second half, and now it was 8-6 Marquette with the Cardinals finding themselves chasing the game.
They did a pretty good job chasing it, particularly on the defensive end, as MU would not score again in the quarter. But Louisville managed just two goals of their own, and so it was tied at eight with 15 minutes remaining.
Marquette’s quick strike offense reappeared, as Tess Osburn snapped one in just 15 seconds into the final frame, assisted by a UL penalty late in the third quarter, and Bireley’s fifth goal of the game came just over four minutes later. 10-8 Marquette. Play even and win.
That’s what they did. Charlotte Jackson for Louisville less than 30 seconds later, Lauren Grady for Marquette less than a minute after that thanks to a power play and a free position attempt, 11-9.
Ella Berg for the Cards with 7:40 to go…. and that was it for Louisville. Marquette won the faceoff, burned some clock, forced a turnover after J Pleck save, burned some more clock, 12-10 on a goal from Bodner, 4:19 to go.
Draw control MU, burn more clock, all the way to a shot clock violation, and then a turnover on the clearance forced by — hey, look at this — Meg Bireley. Yellow card on UL, and Marquette could play up a woman for a while and keep that clock fading away.
Meg Bireley kept up her hot start to the season with five goals here to get her to nine already this season as she chases Marquette’s career points and career goals records. Hanna Bodner got a game high four assists and a goal to match Bireley in points on the day. Tess Osburn used those two early goals to get herself a hat trick.
Marquette’s defense came up big in this one over and over, not just late with those game tilting turnovers. Louisville committed 21 turnovers in the game with MU getting credit for 14 of them as caused turnovers. Hanna Bodner and Lily Dietrich led the way there with three each as that helped combat Marquette’s 17-10 deficit in the draw control department on the day. On the back end, Brynna Nixon came up on the positive end of things with eight saves on 18 shots on frame. No, that’s not over 50%, but Marquette made it to the NCAA tournament with Nixon just short of 41% on the year in 2023. 45% here moves her to 47.8% in three halves of action in 2025. I’ll take it.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FloSports?
Up Next: MU returns to action when they start a weekend road trip on Thursday afternoon in Ohio. They’ll face Cincinnati for a 2pm Central time start, with ESPN+ picking up the streaming broadcast of that one. The Bearcats are 1-2 on the year after getting an 18-4 win over Robert Morris on Saturday. It’s worth noting that UC lost 11-9 at Louisville last week Wednesday.