The Golden Eagles welcome the Wildcats to the Valley in a chance to shock the world.
Marquette’s only loss so far this season is when they went and visited a top 10 team. It got pretty lopsided pretty quickly, with #8 Michigan up 7-2 at the end of the first quarter and ultimately 9-2 in the first 18 minutes on the way to the Wolverines winning 22-5.
And now, a team that was projected to be better than Michigan comes to Valley Fields for a game.
I don’t think I’m stepping out of line to say that it’s going to be pretty difficult for Marquette to pull off a win here. I can’t say for certain how much Marquette has improved since losing to Michigan, since the 16-11 win over Niagara is the only measuring stick we have there.
If Marquette can A) hold Northwestern to less than 22 goals and 2) score more than five goals, I think that’s a net positive for what the Golden Eagles are trying to do here. It’s not so much that they need to show that they’re better than the loss to Michigan, it’s that they’re visiting Colorado on Tuesday. The Buffaloes have done nothing but play ranked teams so far this season, and pending a Saturday home game against that same Michigan team we’ve been talking about, they’ve gone 1-3. Marquette has to take a spark of something good from Friday night against Northwestern to launch them into that Colorado game, otherwise they’re going to be staring at a “lost three of four” situation.
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Game #6: vs #3 Northwestern Wildcats (5-1)
Date: Friday, March 7, 2025
Time: 5pm Central
Location: Andy Glockner Memorial Bubble, Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports, with Peter Ferreri and Eric Simon calling the action
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWLax
Marquette is 0-9 all time against Northwestern, which is about what you would expect for tangling repeatedly with a program that was already a national powerhouse when MU started up their operation. The smallest margin of victory in the series was seven goals when #11 Northwestern won 17-11 in Evanston in 2016, and last year’s game in Evanston went 21-3 to the #4 ranked Wildcats.
Fresh off a national championship game appearance in 2024, Northwestern looks every bit a contender to back to the title game again in 2025. They have wins over then-#11 Notre Dame, then-#25 Colorado, and then-#6 Syracuse. Their lone loss on the year was a home defeat at the hands of #1 Boston College, the same squad that beat them in the 2024 title game. Even that 13-9 final result isn’t telling the full story of that game as Northwestern tallied four times late in the third quarter and early in the fourth to make it 10-8 with 11 minutes to go. They had to make that run to get there, but 11 minutes is forever in lacrosse, so that thing was absolutely winnable for the Wildcats.
It may end up being easier to slow down Northwestern’s offense than it will be to score against them. Lacrosse Reference rates the Wildcats with the #21 offense in the country right now in terms of efficiency, but they’re #7 on the defensive side of the field. Given that they’re #7 in time of possession and #57 in offensive pace, that seems to say that the offense is more of a grind you down situation than anything happening lightning quick. WE’ll see if that plays out that way against Marquette, as Northwestern holds wins of 23-3 against Canisius and 22-5 against the Niagara team that MU just beat 16-11.
Marquette will not win if they can’t slow down Madison Taylor gets going. The junior from New York is averaging over five goals a game this season, and only Boston College held her under five….. and Taylor still had a hat trick. She went for four goals and two assists against Marquette last year, so it’s not going to be a surprise to anyone that the MU defense has to slow her down here. Taylor has more than twice as many shots as anyone else on the roster so far this season, and there’s only one other Wildcat with 10 goals right now. Riley Campbell has exactly 10 through six games to be NU’s #2 goal scorer. Maybe more directly to the point: 14 of Taylor’s 31 goals are free position goals. Don’t put her on the fan! Easier said than done, of course.
Syracuse transfer Delaney Sweitzer has been Northwestern’s starting goalie for the last four games, so odds are she’ll start in net against Marquette. After giving up 13 goals against Boston College and 4 goals on six shots in just 20 minutes against Niagara, she’s been much better. Sweitzer has stopped 11 of 21 shots on goal in the past two games — she dipped out early against Colorado since NU was up big — so she’s getting her feet under her. All told, her season long numbers through 185 minutes are pretty great. 8.74 goals per 60 minutes and a save percentage of .438. I suppose that there’s a chance that head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller goes back to Cara Nugent or Francesca Argentieri for this game, but if they’re going to roll with Sweitzer, it’s probably best to give her the starting minutes.
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