The Golden Eagles get a chance to regroup before facing another top 10 team next week.
I’m not going to go so far as to call Friday’s Marquette women’s lacrosse game a must-win contest for the Golden Eagles. It’s not that critical to what Marquette is trying to do this season, although all wins are important, obviously.
But I’m pretty sure Friday’s home game against Niagara was slotted in between a visit to what was probably going to be a tippy top ranked Michigan team and an obviously tippy top ranked Northwestern team for a reason. The reason is obvious: Head coach Meredith Black wanted to give her team a chance to test themselves against a great opponent, then (probably have to) rebuild themselves against a not-top-10 team, and then step into the lion’s den against another top 10 foe.
On a more base level, it’s an obvious opportunity to avoid back-to-back losses, too. The other side of that is you really do not want to take a loss here and turn a loss-win-loss chance into three straight losses for no gosh darn reason.
On top of that, we can’t ignore the fact that MU’s game after Northwestern is four days later at Colorado…. and the Buffs are 0-3 on the year after starting off the campaign at #21 in the Inside Lacrosse media poll…. and have lost to three ranked teams to start the year….. and will play two more before Marquette comes to town. I don’t know how much Black is talking to her team about how they have to use the Niagara game to get ready for those two contests back-to-back, as coaches often like to keep things focused on the task at hand, but as a guy trying to talk about how this game fits into the fabric of what’s going on this season, I can’t ignore it.
BY THE WAY: Meg Bireley needs three points to become the third Marquette player with 200 career points. With 15 goals and two assists this season already, he’s 24 away from breaking Shea Garcia’s career points record and 17 away from breaking Grace Gabriel’s goals record. Those won’t happen on Friday, but they’re coming……
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Game #5: vs Niagara Purple Eagles (1-3)
Date: Friday, February 28, 2025
Time: 5pm Central
Location: Andy Glockner Memorial Bubble, Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWLax
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 4-2 all time against Niagara. The Golden Eagles won the first three meetings, which ran in a row starting in 2018, but the Purple Eagles have taken two of the last three from 2022 forward. That includes last year’s 19-17 contest in New York.
It’s safe to say at this point that Niagara is not quite as good as they were last season when they got that win over the Golden Eagles. NU went 16-4 overall in 2024 with a 7-2 record that was good enough for a share of the regular season MAAC title. This year, not only were they picked to finish fourth in the MAAC, but they’re 1-3 through four contests instead of 3-1 like they were last year. Okay, maybe that’s a little unfair to the Purple Eagles, as they took a 22-5 loss to #3 Northwestern last week Tuesday and are coming off a 24-7 loss on Tuesday to …. wait, to unranked Cornell? Huh. That’s a rough look.
Maddy Gill is leading Niagara in points and goals so far this year, getting to nine points on eight goals. She’s actually done all of the goal scoring in the last three games with the assist coming in their season opening loss to Arizona State. Her 21 goals a year ago were good enough for fifth best on the squad, but they also make Gill Niagara’s best returning goal scorer. Olivia Ng is the only Purple Eagle with multiple assists this season, and she has two….and both of them came against Northwestern. Nine assists on 27 goals as a team tells me that Niagara is going to struggle a little bit to score if you can stop them one-on-one.
We should probably mention Sydney Huhtala here, as she was the 2024 MAAC Defensive Player of the Year and she’s NU’s only preseason all-MAAC honoree. She’s sitting on 20 ground balls and 19 caused turnovers already this season, and yeah, averaging five per game in both categories (we’ll round up) is pretty dang great. Whether this means she’s excelling as part of a team defensive concept or it means that Huhtala will be stapled to Meg Bireley for 60 straight minutes, I’m not sure but that’s a riddle for MU head coach Meredith Black to solve.
Freshman Haley Terry has started all four games in net this season for Niagara, but we at least have to ask if that’s going to be the case again on Friday. Head coach Wendy Stone pulled Terry after 37 minutes against Cornell and let freshman Abby Penfield finish it out. To be clear: The score was 16-5 at halftime and 18-5 when the change was made. That’s a spot where things are way out of control and it’s time to let the backup play for the first time. That probably means we see Terry again, but since both women are freshmen, it at least opens the door to a change. Letting in 40 goals in 96 minutes in the last two contests has ballooned Terry’s stats, so I’m not sure that pointing out her numbers of 16.60 allowed per 60 minutes or save percentage of .375 actually tell us anything about the season so far.