Third Quarter Goals Explosion: Marquette 16, Detroit Mercy 6

I turned the game on after the men’s basketball game ended, and the Golden Eagles immediately started hurling the ball in the net left, right, and center.

The overlapping of basketball and the start of lacrosse season combined with both sports really loving Saturday games means sometimes I don’t pay enough attention to lacrosse games until basketball games end. That’s the situation where we find ourselves on Saturday, as I didn’t turn on the FloSports feed of Marquette men’s lacrosse until after the men’s basketball game against Creighton wrapped up.

What did I find? Marquette leading 5-3 right as the two teams headed to the halftime break. That was not the world’s most inspiring fact, as I pointed out in my preview that Marquette really needed to show that last week’s clunker against Michigan was not indicative of how this season was going to go. It didn’t get better when I peeked at the live stats to find out that Detroit Mercy was up 2-0 after the first five minutes, and that the Titans had tied the game up at three goals with 9:30 left in the second. Marquette didn’t retake the lead until there was less than five minutes left in the half, and it was only a two goal lead at the break because Nolan Rappis scored in the final minute.

Felt a little shaky, y’know?

David Lamarca got the first goal of the second half at the 11:26 mark of the third quarter, capitalizing on Lucas Lawas dropping an outlet pass over the top of everyone to him, and he just went right to the net with it.

“Right to the net with it” is a good description of the next 11 minutes, as Lamarca’s goal was the first of seven straight unanswered goals for Marquette to start the third quarter. Going back to the end of the second quarter, that’s a 9-0 run by MU, with four of them coming from Nolan Rappis alone. UDM broke up the run right before the quarter ended, but the damage had been done: 12-4 Marquette going to the final 15 minutes.

The Titans scored the first goal of the quarter, but MU tacked on four more as they kept the pressure on. That’s probably the thing that Marquette most needed, particularly in the light of only scoring one goal against Michigan last week. More reps of creating problems and throwing in goals over and over again to get themselves into some kind of a rhythm going forward.

Your final Marquette 16, Detroit Mercy 6, and that’s head coach Jake Richard’s first ever career victory. Undefeated at home, too.

Nolan Rappis and Bobby O’Grady share the goals lead in the game with five each, although Rappis had five assists for a 10 point day. That is a brand new program record, surpassing the eight put up by Tyler Melnyk against Rutgers in 2014 and O’Grady against St. John’s in 2022. Rappis tied the record with an assist to Carsen Brandt on MU’s final goal of the third quarter and then broke it with a helper to O’Grady on MU’s first goal of the fourth. O’Grady “only” had six points here, which is now tied for the 11th best game in program history.

Up Next: We’ll find out how much that 9-0 run and 11-3 second half end up paying off for Marquette next week Saturday. MU will visit #1 Notre Dame for an 11am Central time start on February 15th for their next game. The Irish are the two-time reigning national champions, and they’ll get their 2025 season started on Wednesday night when they host Cleveland State. Interestingly enough, the Vikings will be MU’s opponent in their game following ND.