The Golden Eagles return to Valley Fields in search of their first Big East win of the season.
Marquette women’s soccer got trampled in their Big East opener.
Yeah, I know, the final score was 1-0, but Butler scored in the eighth minute of the match on their second shot. By the time Marquette managed their second shot in the 33rd minute, Butler had already tallied nine shots and forced MU keeper Elise Krone to make four saves just to keep the margin at 1-0. Marquette managed just three more shots for the entire rest of the match.
Yes, 1-0 final. No, it was not particularly close, not with Butler needing just one save to get the shutout victory.
That’s a notable turnaround for Marquette’s offense after burying St. Thomas under five goals in the previous match. Yes, I know, big difference between the Tommies and the Bulldogs, but it can’t help but feel like a step backwards for Marquette. Remember, this is a team that’s currently getting outshot 14.0 to 9.7 on average. MU makes good with the shots they do get, putting nearly half of them on frame to average more than a goal per match this season…. but they’ve been shutout five times and that five-spot against the Tommies is doing some heavy lifting in the ol’ average there, same as the 4-0 win against Mercyhurst.
There are five RPI top 100 non-Marquette teams in the Big East right now, with all of them in the top 80. The other five non-MU teams are at 130 or lower. Sunday afternoon is a shot at one of those top 80 teams, and it’s a shot against one of them that’s going through a bit of a scuffle themselves both overall and as of late. Marquette is just 0-1-0 in Big East play, so there’s a lot of time to put points on the board towards getting into the conference tournament. Breaking out against a team that’s already got two losses in the league hanging around their neck would do the Golden Eagles a lot of favors, both in the standings and in the overall projection of what the squad looks like this season.
In fact, the next eight days could be big for Marquette. 3-4-1 Creighton on Sunday, 6-1-3 St. John’s on Thursday, 2-5-3 DePaul next Sunday. Maybe a positive result on the road against the Johnnies is a bit much to ask since the Red Storm are undefeated there this season, but this eight day stretch will be four of MU’s 10 Big East games. A lot could be decided about how competitive they will be for the top six spots in the standings after it is over, and there’s no time like the present to start working on that.
Big East Match #2: vs Creighton Bluejays (3-4-1, 0-2-0 Big East)
Date: Sunday, September 29, 2024
Time: 1pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC
Marquette is 7-6-3 all time against Creighton. The first few meetings in the series came back in the mid-1990s, and they mostly went in Creighton’s favor. When the Bluejays joined the Big East, Marquette held control of the series, and then it tilted back towards CU for a while. MU has won two of the last three meetings, including last year’s 3-1 contest in Omaha.
Marquette and Creighton somewhat find themselves in similar spots right now. Ross Paule was exited from the CU program after last year’s 4-9-5 record left the Bluejays out of the Big East tournament. Now Jimmy Walker is in charge after posting a 36-19-11 record in four years with Bowling Green, but it’s not starting out particularly hot for him as you can see from the record up top there. At the very least, things are turning away from the Bluejays right now, as they’ve scored just one goal in their last four matches. That does include a scoreless draw at home against then-#19 Saint Louis, but Creighton is without a goal in their first two Big East matches. Perhaps most troubling about that fact is Creighton outshot Villanova 15-9 last time out on Thursday, but a 16th minute goal by the Wildcats had them out in front and a 68th minute penalty kick gave them some room to breathe.
More to the point on those Creighton shots against Villanova: Six of their shots came after VU’s second goal, when you could reasonably expect that the Wildcats weren’t really trying that hard to push forward any more…… and four of them were in the final four minutes. By the way: It could have been worse for Creighton, as Nova had a penalty kick saved in the 76th minute.
That was Alyssa Zalac making the stop to keep things a bit more reasonable. The 5’9” junior from Montreal has played every minute so far this season for Creighton, and she’s doing reasonably well given that she’s never played an official second of college soccer before this season in stops at Ole Miss and Louisville before landing in Omaha. A .750 save percentage isn’t lighting the world on fire, but it’s not awful. She’s letting in 1.38 goals per 90 minutes of action this season, which is a wee bit on the high side of things.
As expected, Azumi Manriki is leading the way for the Creighton offense. The 5’3” midfielder from Hiroshima has already hit her career high for goals with three this season, and her next point will tie her for a career best there as well. With that said, Manriki scored in each of Creighton’s first three matches to get that lead and hasn’t scored since. Ariana Mondiri is the only other Bluejay with more than one goal, and she’s been shutout in CU’s last four matches as well.