The start of the season is swinging into view, so let’s get some preseason picks out into the world, shall we?
We are ONE MONTH away from the start of the 2025 Marquette women’s lacrosse season! You’re reading this for the first time exactly one month before MU opens the season on the road against Central Michigan.
So, I guess it’s a good time to make some preseason award picks for the Big East, huh? As always, I’m trying to predict how the Big East coaches will vote for these things. That means I’m leaning a bit on how last year’s postseason awards went….. but sometimes you have to just step out and trust what the stat book said, too.
Let’s go!
Preseason Offensive Player of the Year: Meg Bireley, Marquette
She led the league in goals and points per game last season. Meg Bireley was the only player in the entire league averaging more than 3.3 goals per game….. and she wrapped up the campaign at 4.06/game. She was one of four women averaging more than four points per game last season, and Bireley is the only one of the four who returns in 2025. Heck, she’s the only returning woman who averaged more than 3.6 points per game.
For me, this isn’t even close, and that’s before I put my blue and gold tinted glasses on.
Preseason Defensive Player of the Year: Riley Daly, Connecticut
She’s one of two returning First Team defenders from the end of last season, and she’s the only unanimous pick for the all-conference team. Now here’s the catch: The other returning First Team defender is teammate Abby Beran. Daly is a senior and Beran is a sophomore this spring, so I’m figuring the coaches let seniority and experience ride here, but I suppose we can’t count on the coaches to keep things normal, right?
Preseason Goalkeeper of the Year: Emelia Bohi, Denver
Picking between Bohi and UConn’s Landyn White for Big East Goalkeeper of the year at the end of 2024 was not an easy choice. White was not a unanimous choice for the all-conference First Team, after all. Bohi ended the season with the best goals-against average in the conference and she stood as the only keeper allowing less than 10 goals per 60 minutes. White may have edged Bohi out based on save percentage as she had a notable advantage there, but based on saves per game, it’s clear that UConn’s defense was allowing more shots on White than Denver’s was doing for Bohi. In any case, the question as to who’s better has been wiped away heading into 2025 as Bohi returns and White does not. I’m merely making the point that Bohi could easily be the reigning GKOTY right now.
Preseason All-Big East Team
Abby Beran, Connecticut, D
Meg Bireley, Marquette, A
Lauren Black, Denver, A
Emelia Bohi, Denver, GK
Caroline Colimore, Denver, M
Riley Daly, Connecticut, D
Rayea Davis, Connecticut, A
Lola Mancuso, Xavier, M
Mary Moore, Villanova, M
Sydney Pappas, Villanova, A
Maley Starr, Georgetown, M
Maddy Stoddard, Villanova, D
Emma Verhoest, Villanova, DS
It’s a simple list construction here.
- All four returning First Team attackers
- All four returning all-BE midfielders
- All three returning all-BE defenders
- Bohi for her personal honor
- Verhoest for being the only returning draw specialist on the all-conference teams
And that’s it. If you want to quibble about Lola Mancuso being listed here as a midfielder when Xavier has her as an attacker, I’ll listen to your point. However, she was fourth in the league in goals per game and ninth in points per game. She deserves to be here, even if her team was 4-11 last season.
Predicted Order Of Finish
1 — Denver
2 — Connecticut
3 — Villanova
4 — Marquette
5 — Georgetown
6 — Xavier
7 — Butler
Tell you what: I’ll pick against Denver when they lose a Big East game. They’ve won every single regular season conference game since the 2019 season. If you want to keep it to any game against a Big East team, then we have to go since the 2021 season, since they lost the 2019 conference tournament title game to Georgetown.
UConn’s only league loss last season was to Denver, so we’ll just chalk them back into the #2 spot since they have offensive and defensive experience returning. Villanova goes next because I can’t ignore the fact that there are four Wildcats on my 13 woman all-Big East team, I can only remember that they went 7-9 even with those women on the roster.
I can’t pick Marquette better than fourth as a result of all of that, even with Meg Bireley burning up nets across the league. I want to see good things for the Golden Eagles, so they get picked ahead of Georgetown for the final conference tournament spot. Xavier has Lola Mancuso returning, so I put them in front of Butler in the battle of the Still Developing New-ish Teams.