The Golden Eagles head to Evanston with a fantastic chance to make a splash against a top 10 opponent.
Marquette men’s soccer has hit a bit of a scuffle patch in their last two contests. The David Korn Era started out white hot with three straight victories and just one goal allowed. Even that goal could be handwaved away, as it was on a penalty kick and the call was maybe a teeny tiny suspect as far as calls deserving of a penalty kick go.
The winning streak came to an end on the road against UW-Madison, and the two goals that the Golden Eagles let in there were both a little bit on the side of “well, that’s the way the ball bounces” types of things. A tiny touch of physics one way or the other, and the Badgers don’t score those two goals. You can say Marquette was unlucky to have lost there, but if you do, you have to say that they were lucky to escape from their most recent contest with a scoreless draw.
Marquette benefitted from freshman netminder Marten Brink stopping a penalty kick — thankfully he’s 6’7” and not 6’4”, just saying — as well as a break when VAR wiped out a “well, this was an obvious mental mistake oopsie” goal because of an offside ruling. Sure, you could argue that maybe the match goes differently if Marquette lets in either one of those goals, but the Golden Eagles never put the ball in the net, not even on a shot that was waved off, and so it’s hard to say that.
Things were never going to go perfectly for MU in Korn’s first season in charge. That’s partially because almost no seasons go perfectly for anyone, and also partially because coaching changes take time to settle in. The good news is that the Golden Eagles get a chance to redeem themselves for their missteps in the last two matches on Monday night. No matter what you think about how those games went, none of it would really matter if Marquette finds a way to beat a top 10 ranked team. Hey, that Wisconsin team that lucked into a win over MU is suddenly #10 in the country, so it’s not completely unthinkable, y’know?
Match #6: at #9 Northwestern Wildcats (4-1-0)
Date: Monday, September 9, 2024
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium, Evanston, Illinois
Streaming: B1G+, which will cost you $13 for a month.
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteSoccer
Marquette is 17-5-1 all time against Northwestern. The series dates back all the way to 1964, the first ever season of men’s lacrosse at MU. The two teams played just one time in the 1970s, but a whole bunch in the 1980s and 1990s. Since the turn of the century, Marquette and Northwestern have clashed just three times, and one was a 1-0 Northwestern win in the 2012 NCAA tournament. All three of those 21st century meetings were in Milwaukee, including the most recent contest in 2016, a 4-1 Marquette victory.
Northwestern was picked to finish eighth in the 11 team Big Ten this season. Are you wondering how the hell they got to be #9 in the country if they’re supposed to barely be top eight in their own conference? Fantastic question. The answer? No idea. They weren’t earning preseason votes in the United Soccer Coaches top 25, and then they beat Green Bay and DePaul in their first two matches of the year. All due respect to those teams and those players, but, uh, that’s not two wins worthy of suddenly debuting in the top 25, much less jumping in at #12 which is what happened.
The Wildcats did back up their ranking with wins over Drake and Illinois-Chicago, although again: Not exactly lighting the world on fire victories here. NU is coming off a visit to #4 Western Michigan on Friday night, and that’s where they suffered their first loss of the season. Northwestern let in a goal in the 48th minute after getting outshot 8-0 in the first half, and the goal was the first shot after the break, so that’s 9-0 and the margin hit 10-0 in the 52nd minute before Northwestern finally got an official shot off.
Northwestern does not have anyone who has scored a second goal yet this season, so there’s a seven-way tie for first on the stat sheet in that column. Italo Addimandi has added two assists to the proceedings, so his four points lead the team here. That’s just barely beating out Peter Riesz, as he has one assists. We should probably mention Bryant Mayer and Jayvin Van Deventer, who have assisted on two of NU’s seven goals without scoring one of their own yet. That’s a lot of points from a lot of different guys and shot leader Thaddaeus Dewing (he’s got 9 attempts) doesn’t have a single point yet this season.
Junior Rafael Ponce de Leon has played every minute in net so far this season. The Northwestern field defense is doing a lot of the heavy defensive work, as there’s been just eight shots on goal out of the 31 that Ponce de Leon has faced. As a result, his save percentage is not so hot at .625, but his goals-against average is amazing at 0.60.