The Golden Eagles might just be out of chances for 2024.
There are three match days left on the Big East calendar for women’s soccer. The top six teams in the standings will qualify for the conference tournament. With 19 points each, Xavier and Georgetown have both already clinched two of the six tournament berths.
That leaves four spots up for grabs right now. There is currently a three-way tie for the sixth and final spot, with DePaul, UConn, and Providence sitting on nine points.
Marquette is in 10th place with four points at 1-5-1.
Mathematically, Marquette is not eliminated. They have nine points left available to them, and that means that they can get to 13. It is possible that could be enough, especially with MU having a match against Providence on Thursday and one more match to play than UConn.
Here’s the catch: One of Marquette’s remaining three matches is against that Xavier team that’s 6-1-1 in Big East play. Beating a ranked Xavier team is not going to be easy. I think it’s safe to say that a total of 10 points is not going to be enough when three teams need just one win in their final matches to get to 12.
Making the catch worse: Marquette hasn’t scored a goal in their last three matches, getting outscored 10-0 in that time. Throw out a 9-0 advantage in matches against Mercyhurst and St. Thomas, and MU has been outscored 31-7 overall this season.
Mathematically, Marquette is still in this. Analytically, it’s hard to say that the Golden Eagles have a chance. If they come up empty on Thursday night, that’s probably all she wrote, no matter what happens on Sunday against the Musketeers.
Big East Match #8: vs Providence Friars (6-8-1, 3-4-0 Big East)
Date: Thursday, October 24, 2024
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC
Marquette is 11-5-3 all time against Providence. Unfortunately for the Golden Eagles, six of the eight non-victories have been in the last six meetings. MU hasn’t beaten Providence since 2016 and haven’t beaten PC in Milwaukee since 2015.
We can’t necessarily apply hope for Marquette to Providence’s 2-1 win over Xavier back on Sunday. The Musketeers went up 1-0 in the eighth minute and outshot the Friars 6-1 in the first half. Then XU’s Olivia Lawson took a straight red card in the 54th minute and the Friars found their way to a 70th minute penalty kick and a 73rd minute winner, even while getting outshot 9-3. That win is currently stapling PC to the three-way tie for the sixth and final tournament berth, but sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. For Marquette though, they can’t just cross their fingers and blindly pray that it works out for them.
That win against Xavier snapped a stretch of four straight 1-0 lossess suffered by the Friars, which is how they find themselves on the edge of missing the Big East tournament right now. In fact, the Xavier match is the only time this season where there has been more than one goal in a Big East match that involves Providence. They opened up Big East play with back-to-back 1-0 home wins over St. John’s and Butler.
Marquette’s biggest defensive assignment will be closing down Kacey Lawrence….. if she’s in the lineup. The 5’4” grad student leads Providence in goals and assists with four each, and she’s the only player with more than five points on the season. However, she hasn’t played since October 13th against Creighton when she played a season low 23 minutes. Lawrence has 34 shots on the year when no one else on the roster even has 15 yet, and that’s without playing in the last two matches.
It hasn’t been a perfect split, but Emma Bodmer and Ellie Thallman have been splitting time in net for 12 of Providence’s 15 matches this season. All of Thallman’s appearances this season have been in relief of Bodmer at halftime, but she’s only played in 12 matches. Thallman has played in every single Big East match, so that’s a steady streak right now. We can easily argue that the Friars need to take a deep long look at just putting Bodmer on the bench for good, as she’s letting in 1.58 goals per 90 minutes and barely stopping 70% of shots on goal. Meanwhile, Thallman is letting in 0.83 goals per 90 minutes and posting a .800 save percentage, and the only goal she’s given up in Big East action was a penalty kick from Creighton. I get that head coach Sam Lopes has loyalty to Bodmer here over grad transfer Thallman, but the math ain’t mathing here.
Big East Match #9: vs Xavier Musketeers (13-2-2, 6-1-1 Big East)
Date: Sunday, October 27, 2024
Time: 1pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC
Marquette is 9-4-1 all time against Xavier. All but the very first meeting happened since The Reformation, but MU has only won two of the last seven meetings and none of the last three.
We mentioned Xavier’s loss to Providence on Sunday. Bad news: This match is their next contest, so Marquette’s going to take the brunt of their frustration. Good news: Olivia Lawson’s going to be suspended by way of the red card she was given against Providence. Xavier’s other non-wins this season:
- A 2-2 draw with then-#4 Michigan State
- A 3-2 loss with then-#23 Saint Louis
- A 1-1 draw with UConn
Probably not coincidentally, UConn pulled that draw out of their butts by lucking into an 83rd minute penalty kick.
Olivia Lawson is one of five Musketeers who have scored at least five goals this season, so that’s good-adjacent news for Marquette. The bad news: Top scorers Samantha Wiehe and Samantha Erbach (nine goals each) are both still in the lineup. Emma Flick “only” has six goals this season to go with her team high eight assists.
This is where I point out that Erbach has 62 shots this season all by herself. Marquette has 157 as a team. Xavier has a 19.2 vs 6.9 shots for/against average this season. The 13-2-2 record was enough of a sign that this might go poorly for Marquette, but hoooooooboy do the styles involved here pose some very bad problems for the Golden Eagles. It’s entirely possible that XU keeper Maria Galley could find use for a beach chair and a book during this match unless the Golden Eagles find something completely different to do on offense against Xavier.