If the Golden Eagles want to be a postseason team in David Korn’s first season, now’s the time to do something about it.
We’re down to three regular season matches for Marquette men’s soccer, and two of them are going down between now and Saturday night. It’s put up or shut up time for the Golden Eagles, and unfortunately for them, they’ve got a pretty nasty test waiting on Saturday night.
Here’s the deal: Heading into Wednesday’s match day, Marquette is currently tied with Creighton and Seton Hall for the fourth best point total that’s not held by a Division Leader in the Big East. The six best point totals after the Division Leaders get into the conference tournament, and as you can tell, a three-way tie for fourth is the same thing as a three-way tie for fifth and a three-way tie for the sixth and final spot. With three matches left to go, there’s a lot of ways that this can go for Marquette, and that’s great news. Even better: Wednesday’s match is against a team that’s three points behind Marquette and under .500 overall this season. In theory, that’s a very winnable match, and three points would go a long way towards pushing the Golden Eagles across the line and into the postseason.
Maybe more importantly relative to Wednesday is the fact that Saturday’s match is against the only Big East team with nothing but league wins on their board this season. It’s going to be a hell of a time to pry a point, much less three, out of Akron on Saturday, even with that match being played in Milwaukee. MU can’t count on things going well against the Zips, which means Wednesday’s match in Chicago is pretty pivotal for the entire enterprise.
Yes, there’s still one more match left to go after this week, but wouldn’t it be more fun to have possibilities and options for a result in the finale as opposed to making it a must-win/do-or-die outing? Seems like the more fun route to go there.
One tactical note for Wednesday: Matthew Iriarte will be out on suspension for Marquette after taking on two yellow cards in the first half against Xavier. The Golden Eagles were probably a little bit lucky to escape Cincinnati with a scoreless draw and a point there, so it’s kind of crucial to turn around and grab three points to make up for it. Iriarte had played in all 14 contests this season up until now, and he had started in each of MU’s last three matches. He’ll be available again on Saturday against Akron.
REMINDER: Marquette’s home contests are streamed nearly exclusively on FloSports, as are all Big East home matches and all league schedule contests. If you are paying full price for FloSports at $30 a month, you are doing it wrong. Please use this link to pay less than half of that, and even less if you can use a Marquette.edu email address.
Big East Match #6: at DePaul Blue Demons (5-6-2, 1-3-1 Big East)
Date: Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Time: 2pm Central
Location: Wish Field, Chicago, Illinois
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteSoccer
Marquette is 30-7-2 all time against DePaul. The series has bent towards the Blue Demons since 2004 though, as they’ve been playing since 1982 and MU went 22-0-1 in the first 23 and didn’t even allow a goal until meeting #5. Still, the Golden Eagles are 5-1-1 in the last seven, although the loss was the 2022 match and the draw was last year in Milwaukee.
DePaul comes into Wednesday afternoon with two losses in their most recent contests. They’ve managed just one goal in those two matches and let in four on the other end both times. The goal came on the road against St. John’s as part of a completely wild first half, as Noeh Hernandez’s sixth goal of the season came in the 36th minute and cut STJ’s lead to 3-1. YEP, the Johnnies scored three of their four in the first half hour. Next time out, DePaul let in two goals in the first 20 minutes against #25 Akron on Senior Day at Wish Field, and then two more just barely more than four minutes apart just past the hour mark.
I’d like to hear DePaul head coach Mark Plotkin explain which one he thought was worse. Akron outshot DePaul 17-2, but St. John’s thumped them 25-7 on shots with 16 coming in the first half. Neither one is good, but there’s definitely levels of not good involved there.
You’re probably not surprised to find out that DePaul’s getting outshot on average this season after that last bit. It’s not a wide margin, 14.3 against versus 9.1 for, but it’s enough to tilt the field against the Blue Demons regularly. In theory, that’s an overall trend that Marquette can take advantage of, but they’ll have to actually do it and DePaul will be working hard to shake off what happened in their last two matches.
The aforementioned Noeh Hernandez is the point leader on this roster, and he’s having a hell of a season. The midfielder from Bridgeview, Illinois, has six goals and seven assists, which means he’s had a hand in 13 of DePaul’s 24 goals this season. He’s leading the team in both categories, and so he’s got the team lead in points as well at 19. Believe it or not, he’s not the Big East’s points or goals leader — we’ll get to that in a second — but he is leading in assists, but just barely. MU will also have to mind where Keagan Pace is, as he’s no slouch with three goals and five assists this season.
On the other end of the field, Marquette will be squaring off with Santiago Davila. The Wauwatosa East product has played every minute so far this season after playing in just two matches in his career with DePaul before 2024. That Shots Against thing from earlier is working against Davila, as letting in four goals in each of the past two matches has boosted his goals-against average up to a very not great 1.92. His save percentage is almost more troubling if you’re Mark Plotkin, as Davila’s stopping less than 68% of shots on goal. If MU can keep the pressure up, they should be able to find the net.
FUN FACT: Former Marquette midfielder Martin Alba is on the staff with DePaul!
Big East Match #7: vs #25 Akron Zips (8-3-3, 5-0-0 Big East)
Date: Saturday, October 26, 2024
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteSoccer
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 1-8-5 all time against Akron. MU was winless in the first 12 encounters with the Zips between 1980 and 1998, and then the two were drawn into an NCAA tournament match in 2013. That’s Marquette’s lone win in the series, and it remains Marquette’s lone NCAA tournament victory in program history. The two teams went to a draw last year in Akron’s first season as a Big East affiliate member, although officially, the #7 ranked Zips put both goals into the net.
First things first: That says #25 Akron at the top because at the moment I’m writing this on Tuesday morning, that’s where the Zips are ranked. That’s because the new United Soccer Coaches poll won’t actually come out until later today. If you’re reading this, I haven’t updated it yet, and I’ll edit the ranking as needed when the new poll comes out.
Akron is currently riding a seven match winning streak as I write this, but they’ll have to host Creighton in between now and Saturday night. They hold a 24-6 goals advantage during this winning streak, and that includes posting four shutouts. It also includes a wild 4-3 win over Butler to start the streak where Akron rallied to lead 3-1 at the 11 minute mark. Butler scored 17 seconds in, then Akron scored twice 37 seconds apart, then Butler scored in the 15th minute! That match was tied at three at the half, and a 56th minute strike from Emil Jaaskelainen ended up as the only second half goal and the game winner.
And so, that’s a nice bridge to talking about Emil Jaaskelainen, who is the guy beating out DePaul’s Noeh Hernandez for the Big East lead in goals and points. There’s no shame for Hernandez in losing this battle, as Jaaskelainen has 16 goals and seven assists this season to give him 39 points. That’s the most goals by anyone in the nation, beating out Missouri State’s Jesus Barea with 13. That’s the most points by anyone in the nation, beating out Barea and Cornell’s Alex Harris, both of whom have a very good but not good enough 28 points. Jaaskelainen is averaging 2.79 points per match this season partially because he’s averaging 1.14 goals per match. The 6’3” Englishman has scored in each of Akron’s last four contests, and he’s put in at least two goals in each of the last three matches….. because he had a hat trick in a 3-2 win over Villanova.
I don’t entirely want to say that if you stop Jaaskelainen, you stop Akron. Dyson Clapier has four goals and six assists, and Victor Gaulmin has matched that assist number and added three goals of his own. There’s guys doing stuff here. But Jaaskelainen has more than twice as many shots as anyone else on the roster as he averages 4.79 attempts per game. Heck, he’s got almost as many shots on goal — 32 — as the next most prolific shooter has shots at all, as Clapier has 33 attempts this season.
Weirdly, Akron kind of needs Jaaskelainen to score like this. Mitch Budler is letting in 1.14 goals per 90 minutes this season and he’s barely stopping 70% of shots on goal. As you can tell from the six goals in seven matches but four shutouts thing from earlier, Budler seems to run hot and cold. He had a shutout last time out against DePaul, so hopefully he doesn’t have a cold match against Creighton to lead to a hot match against the Golden Eagles.