Records Are Made To Be Broken Or Tied: Marquette 24, Detroit Mercy 10

Meg Bireley puts up five goals and four assists to break the program’s career record for points & tie the career record for goals….. and that helped Brynna Nixon break the career wins record.

For about 20 minutes in the middle of a snowstorm on Sunday afternoon at Valley Fields, it seemed that Marquette women’s lacrosse was going to have themselves a battle with Detroit Mercy. After the first quarter ended with Marquette scoring the final two goals of the period in the final 80 seconds to take a 5-3 lead, the two sides traded goals in the first five minutes of the second quarter. 6-4 Marquette as the clock wound under 10 minutes to go before halftime.

Part of the reason for the competitiveness to that point of things might be because Detroit Mercy was doing a solid job taking Meg Bireley out of the equation. She had just one goal — put MU up 4-3 — in the first 20 minutes on seven shots. Not a good job, obviously, you’re not doing a good job when the opponent’s leading scorer has seven shots in 20 minutes, but Bireley was clearly not burning the Titans either.

From there on out, it was pretty much all Marquette as the Golden Eagles started getting into a rhythm and perhaps started to figure out how to attack what the Titans were doing to stifle Bireley. The final 10 minutes of the half went 8-2 favoring the Golden Eagles, and part of that was because of two goals and an assist from Bireley. Hanna Bodner had three of her five goals on the day in this stretch, so while freeing up Bireley was a big deal, getting goals from other places on the field was critical as well.

And so, Meg Bireley went into the second half needing three points to tie and four to break Shea Garcia’s career record for points. She also needed two goals to tie and three to break Grace Gabriel’s career record in that department, too.

Marquette outpaced the Titans 5-3 in the third quarter, and Campbell Brown’s woman-up goal with 36 seconds left in the frame finally kicked in the 10 goal running clock, something that was looming on the horizon eventually in this game by that point. Bireley had two assists in the quarter to bring her to the edge of history, but with a 10 goal lead, it was worth wondering if head coach Meredith Black would keep her star attacker out on the field or if it was time to empty the bench.

For the time being, the move was to let Bireley attack the record.

This goal at the 11:23 mark pulled Bireley even with Garcia’s points record.

And this assist on Riley Schultz’s first career goal at the 5:45 mark — that pesky running clock kept chewing up minutes — is the one that pushed Bireley all alone into the top of the points chart with 221 in her career.

And she was not done.

Bireley finished the day with nine points, as she scored this goal with 4:02 remaining to tie Grace Gabriel.

Your final from the Valley: Marquette 24, Detroit Mercy 10.

That is an 18-6 run to close the game for Marquette, and if you wanted to call it an 18-5 run because UDM scored with 90 seconds left, I’m not going to argue with you.

The scoring records are the showy parts, but it wasn’t the only history here. Brynna Nixon played past halftime and left with just over six minutes to play, which is long enough to get the credit on the decision in this one. That makes it the 25th win in her career as Marquette’s goalie, and that breaks Jules Horning’s previous top mark. It was a sneaky bad stats game for Nixon, as she made just one save on nine shots on goal…. but also Marquette was up 16-8 when she exited and they outshot UDM 29-9 in the first half, so part of that is just Marquette only giving up high quality looks and barely any of those.

Obviously Bireley’s nine point day is the best in the game, but Marquette got big showings from lots of women. Tess Osburn and Campbell Brown both had six points on four goals and two assists, Hanna Bodner had the previously mentioned five goals, and Lauren Grady had a hat trick, too.

Up Next: Who’s ready for Big East play?? The conference slate gets started next week Saturday as Marquette makes the (relatively) short trip down the road to Indianapolis to visit Butler. First draw on March 22nd is set for 11am Central time, and FloSports will have the broadcast. The Bulldogs are 0-5 on the year so far after losing 10-4 to Eastern Michigan back on March 7, and they’re currently losing 10-7 on the road against Lindenwood as I type this.