Let’s see who head coach Meredith Black brings back from her 2024 roster.
We’re getting closer and closer to the start of the 2025 Marquette women’s lacrosse season!
So we should probably take a peek around and see what’s going on with the team this year, huh? We’ll look at the returning players from last year and assess what head coach Meredith Black has to build with heading into the year, and in a future installment, we’ll take a look at who is new on the roster and how they might fit into the puzzle.
We’ll start with the attackers and move backwards to the goalkeepers, okay?
Let’s go!
ATTACK
There’s only one place to start this entire deal, and that’s with YOUR 2025 Big East Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, Meg Bireley. She comes into this season after breaking Marquette’s single season goals record a year ago. In fact, Bireley’s 69 strikes made her the first Marquette player to ever record 60 goals in a season, as the previous record was 59 by both Lydia Foust and Grace Gabriel. Her seven assists boosted her up to 76 points, which was the third best total in a season in program history and only the third 70 point season. Bireley starts off her final year in blue and gold at #4 all time in points and goals, and she needs 41 on the former and 32 on the latter to break the career records there.
The good news is that she’s not going to have to do all the heavy lifting by herself, as the Golden Eagles return a trio of attackers with Bireley who all averaged at least one goal per game in 2024. Tess Osburn leads the way there with 32 goals last season and 39 points overall. Isabelle Casucci came off the bench in every game last season but still managed 21 goals and three assists, while CJ Meehan missed one game while getting to 18 goals and a total of 25 points. We’ll see if everyone’s talents all fit together properly there, but that’s a starting attack group that’s experienced both in general and in the context of playing with each other, too.
Campbell Brown and Adrianna Commodari played in 13 games each last season, which was a career high for both women. They didn’t do much in the way of putting the ball in the net, combining for just four goals and six assists, but we’re talking about adding value by way of depth here. There’s space given the graduated players for both women to take up a bigger role this season, so we’ll have to see how they fare in 2025.
Riley Schultz made pretty solid use of six games worth of appearances as a freshman last year, getting a goal and three assists. Shannon Murphy was a first year player in 2024 as well, and she tallied her first career goal in one of her three appearances. Nina Winter is part of that same recruiting class, but didn’t get on the field last year. She’s one of only two women on the roster listed at six feet or taller (Casucci is 6’2”), so perhaps her size can help her her some time this year.
MIDFIELD
While we felt pretty good about Marquette’s attack corps, we can’t quite say the same thing about the midfielders. Hannah Bodner is the clear top of the class after playing in all 17 games a year ago and starting 12 times. As a result of playing more than she had in her first two seasons with the team, Bodner put up 15 goals and six assists in 2024, and that makes her Marquette’s #5 returning scorer. She also had 24 draw controls, which makes her MU’s top returning player from that stat column. We’re probably going to need Bodner to get a little bit better with her accuracy, as her .288 shooting percentage is the worst amongst those top five scorers.I
None of the other midfielders started a game last year, although three of them played in at least 10 games. Eileen Dooley (10 games), Riley Jenkins (11), and Sarah Beth Burns (12) were all freshmen last year, so credit to them for earning a pretty solid chunk of playing time right out of the gate. We can’t really say that any of them made a major impact on the stat sheet, as Dooley was the top scorer with three goals and Burns chipped in nine draw controls. Still, they jumped towards the front of the line in terms of earning the coaching staff’s trust last season, so maybe there’s a bigger part for them to play this year.
I feel like there’s definitely a role for Lorelai VanGuilder this season. She only played in nine games last season, but 1) that was a career high and 2) she had 16 draw controls in those nine games. Seven of them did come in one game, but that just adds to my point because that was a team high in that game. As mentioned a moment ago, MU needs people to excel on the draw this season, and it would seem that VanGuilder has a head start on most of the rest of the roster.
Might be a role for Lauren Grady, too. She had seven assists in eight games played as a freshman last year, and a three point game with her first career goal against Villanova. MU needs secondary scoring and scoring from the midfield, so why not her? I can’t really make a big case for Sayla Lotysz after a goal on three shots in seven games last year, but there has to be midfielders stepping up somewhere on this roster.
DEFENSE
Marquette has two returning starters on defense, so that’s a good building block. Sofia Santana and Molly Powers both started all 17 games a year ago, so the continuity and cohesiveness that they already share goes a long way towards getting things going in 2025. Santana was a part-time starter as a freshman in 2023, while Powers is going into her fourth year as a starter on the defensive end of the field. That’s even better news for Marquette. We can’t quite say that either one of them was a major impact defender, but that might be more of a role issue than anything else. MU lost Faith Chmielewski, Audrey Brett, and Kaitlyn Huber to the end of their eligibility after last season, and they were 1-2-T3 in caused turnovers on the team and 1-2-8 in ground balls amongst field players. Santana and Powers are either going to have to be steadfast in their roles this season or start producing stats on the board in terms of defending. That doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be caused turnovers and ground balls, but if it’s not that, then MU has to improve on their #106 defensive efficiency at the very least.
Mary Velner is the most likely option to join Santana and Powers in the starting lineup. She played in 14 games a year ago and started six times, somewhat helped to that by Brett only playing in 14 contests. Given her role mostly as a reserve, 7 ground balls and 6 caused turnovers is pretty decent, so we’ll have to see what she can do if she gets the full time starting nod this year. I think we’re going to see Lily Dietrich get a chance to start as well. She played in 12 games last year, which was a career high, but here’s the catch: She’s been listed as a midfielder for the past three years. Marquette shows her as a defender on the roster now, and that makes me think that she’s getting elevated to a defensive starter for 2025. 9 ground balls and 7 caused turnovers isn’t too bad for somewhat limited action, so maybe that’s a thing she can excel at if the coaching staff turns her loose?
Maeve Dooley got into five games as a sophomore last year to bring her to eight total played at Marquette. It seems like she’ll be on the outside looking in when it comes to the starting lineup, but last year proved that there’s space for reserves to work into a rotation on the defensive end of the field. In any case, MU needs to be better over there, and if Dooley can show she’s a better option, then Meredith Black has to go in that direction. Riley Leversedge is the only other returning defender on the roster, but she’s coming off a redshirt first year on campus. We’ll have to see if that year of development as a Division 1 player turns into playing time.
GOALIE
Marquette has questions to be answered by their returning goalies in 2025. 2024 was a step backwards in production for Brynna Nixon after she held up her end of the deal in 2023 to propel the Golden Eagles to the first NCAA tournament appearance in program history. She went from stopping nearly 41% of shots on frame to only connecting on 33% last year, and so her goals-against average ballooned from 12.02 to 15.58. Her struggles led to Nixon starting only 14 times a year ago, with three of MU’s contests going to Mikayla Yang instead. Nixon still played in two of the three games she didn’t start because Yang wasn’t exactly building a wall on the back end, either. Her 11.98 goals-against average goes into the books as better than what Nixon was doing while pushing MU to that at-large bid, but Yang did it with a .309 save percentage. That’s objectively worse than what Nixon was doing, but in fairness, it was in about 25% of the minutes.
The point is this: Someone needs to step up big time in net for Marquette. Nixon’s the one with the track record of “good enough for a posteason berth,” but that only matters if she can get back to that level. If she can’t, then it’s going to be up to someone else in the room to step up. I’m guessing that the coaching staff isn’t inclined towards putting Ava Sprinkel out there as a starter because if they were, she would have gone in front of Yang last year. Sprinkel has 178 career minutes played in 13 appearances scattered across the past two seasons, and if she could replicate that 11.44 goals-against average for a season, that would be neat. However, that’s backed by a .261 career save percentage, so the GAA might be a “she’s playing mop up duty in blowouts” situation more than anything else.
By the way! I don’t mean to indicate that the entirety of MU’s goalkeeping situation needs to be solved by the goalies themselves! You know what will make Nixon look pretty dang great in net? A whole bunch of field defenders in front of her denying opponents quality looks at the net in the first place! You don’t have to make a lot of saves to be great in women’s lacrosse, by the way. There were just five women that qualified for the NCAA leaderboard last season that finished the year with a save percentage over 50%. 45% still gets you in the general vicinity of top 40 in the country. Make the shots harder, save percentage goes up, everyone wins.
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