And now, a mid-week break from Big East play right after league action started on Saturday.
I can’t say one way or another exactly why Marquette women’s lacrosse head coach Meredith Black decided to insert a mid-week game in between her first two Big East games of the 2025 season. It’s a quick turnaround out of a Saturday road game, and then a short recovery to a kind of important league game on Saturday. The Big East schedule is so short that there’s a heavy amount of weight to each game relative to positioning for the Big East tournament, and putting one of them a little bit at risk by resetting the recovery clock and/or risking a non-con loss relative to mindset…. well, there’s at least reasons to question what’s up with this.
With that said….. the Big East office did kind of set Marquette up with a situation of “if you are going to put a mid-week game in here somewhere, this isn’t too bad, as long as it’s at home.” Another home game on Saturday, and again next Wednesday with something of a scheduled loss as league favorite Denver comes to Milwaukee. Whatever you lose by way of playing three games in nine days (or five in 16, if you expand it to the Butler game that just happened and the road trip to Villanova after this three game set at home), you gain back by not having to travel for any of these three in a row.
And if we’re really being honest about it, just looking at these three in nine days? Marquette should be able to get the two Big East wins even if they don’t turn in A+ performances. Sorry Butler, sorry Xavier, but you’re the two worst teams on Marquette’s schedule this season, and the Golden Eagles are already 33-10 in goals for/against in their two games against sub-100 RPI opponents.
One last thing to think about: I think whatever chances Marquette has at an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament are kind of hinging on this game. They’ve lost to the two ranked opponents they’ve played and again to a Colorado team that was probably only not ranked because they signed themselves up for too many problems to start the season. The margins on these things are awfully thin, so maybe those three losses are enough to remove MU from consideration already. But best to find a way past the Sun Devils and then at least ask the question later, right?
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Game #10: vs Arizona State Sun Devils (7-3)
Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Time: Noon Central
Location: Andy Glockner Memorial Bubble, Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWLax
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 0-1 all time against Arizona State. The only meeting came back in late February of 2020, as the Sun Devils snagged the 18-14 victory out in Arizona.
Marquette lost to Colorado this season, but beat Cincinnati. Those are the teams one spot ahead and one spot behind Arizona State in the Big 12 preseason poll, where the Sun Devils were slotted in at 3rd place. That could also just be considered “second place in the non-Florida division” as the Gators have been a top 10 team from preseason til now. What does that mean for Marquette? Hard to say, but Arizona State’s results so far this season on their way to a 7-3 record help tell us about how Marquette stacks up with them.
Beat Niagara, 15-9 (Marquette won, 16-11)
Beat Detroit Mercy 21-1 (Marquette won, 24-10)
That feels kind of like Arizona State and Marquette are somewhat evenly matched. One result in the books for ASU might tell us where MU is going this season in Big East action. The Sun Devils took a 21-12 loss in San Diego against Denver in a game that was 5-2 ASU at the end of the first quarter…. and 9-7 Denver at halftime. But that’s a situation that we’ll have to take stock in after Tuesday’s game is over.
Marquette’s defense is getting dealt a tough task in this game, as ASU’s Jordyn Behar is averaging more than five points per game this season. She’s up to 20 goals and 37 assists, and given her dual threat nature, it might be a good idea to just try face guarding Behar for 60 straight minutes and see if you can just avoid her having the ball at all. She’s third on the team in goals behind the 33 from Teagan Ng and 30 from Lydia Oldknow, but considering that no one else on ASU’s roster has more than seven assists, it’s worth asking how much you can limit Ng and Oldknow if Behar isn’t hitting them with passes. One way or another, MU is going to have to find a way to clamp down on Lacrosse Reference’s #28 offense. Dartmouth did it in ASU’s last game, holding Behar to two goals and an assist as the Big Green got a 20-10 victory. Maybe there’s an answer in there somewhere.
Arizona State has gotten minutes here and there for their backup goalies this season, but Katie Vahle has started all 10 games and the heavy majority of the minutes. Vahle is just outside the top 20 when it comes to save percentage this season, deflecting away over 48% of shots on goal. That’s turned into 12.14 goals allowed per 60 minutes this season, and this all feels like math that you can win with… and yet LaxRef ranks ASU at #82 in defensive efficiency.