The running clock went on late in the second quarter and then it went off late in the third, but the Musketeers never truly threatened the Golden Eagles.
Saturday’s Marquette women’s lacrosse game went in stages, somewhat determined by who was playing goalie for both teams.
15:00 1st Quarter To 9:49 1st Quarter: Brynna Nixon for Marquette, Teegan Lannon for Xavier
5-0 Marquette
9:49 1st Quarter To Halftime: Brynna Nixon for Marquette, Jada Brandon for Xavier
10-3 Marquette
15:00 3rd Quarter To End of Game: Mikayla Yang for Marquette, Jada Brandon for Xavier
6-4 Xavier
If you want to put it another way: Marquette 15, Xavier 3, while Marquette was still rolling out their best possible lineup. The game wasn’t over when Meg Bireley scored the second of her seven goals in the game to put Marquette up 5-0, but it might have been over when Tess Osburn scored her third of five goals to put MU up 13-3. By rule, that kicked in the running clock, and by default, that makes Marquette’s offensive slowdown in the third quarter in a little bit of perspective. It’s hard to stack up goals in a hurry when 90 seconds disappears from the game just resetting from “ball is in the net” to “referee blows whistle for draw.”
So yeah, it’s not great that Marquette only scored one goal in the third quarter and got outscored 3-1. But it was 16-6 heading to the fourth quarter, and Xavier didn’t turn off the running clock until the 13:24 mark of the period. Lola Mancuso scored that goal, and then she scored again less than 90 seconds later to make it four unanswered for the Musketeers and 16-9 on the scoreboard.
It’s not what you want when you were up by 12 goals at halftime, but it’s not a rampaging disaster…. yet. Yes, it’s not great that Mikayla Yang was letting in goals, but Marquette was never truly in danger of losing the lead. Maybe we would have seen Brynna Nixon again if there had been another goal or two in a row for the Musketeers, but that didn’t happen. In fact, XU never scored again. Heck, Xavier only managed three shots the reset of the way, and Yang came up with the save on all three. Along the way, Xavier committed five turnovers, all credited as caused by Marquette, and the Golden Eagles stacked up three more goals. That included Isabelle Casucci scoring with a woman advantage at the 6:36 mark to make it 19-9 and turn that running clock back on.
It is at least a little funny that Casucci’s goal music is a family friendly edit of Cee Lo’s F*** You.
Marquette is now 2-0 in Big East play for the second time in three seasons. Meg Bireley’s seven goals led the team in that department, and she tacked on an assist for a game high eight points. That’s her third contest this season with at least that many points. Tess Osburn added an assist to her five goals for six points here, and Hanna Bodner followed up her eight goal day against Arizona State with three more here plus a helper, too.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FloSports?
Up Next: Marquette has a quick turnaround to a pivotal Big East contest. They’ll be back in action on Wednesday afternoon for a Noon Central time start against Denver, and FloSports will have the streaming broadcast there. The Pioneers are also 2-0 in Big East play after beating Georgetown 16-13 on Saturday. Denver started out the year as the Big East favorite and at #15 in the Inside Lacrosse media poll, but they’re now unranked and just 7-4 on the year after a 5-4 mark in non-conference contests.