Women’s Soccer Preview: vs Villanova & at Georgetown

The Golden Eagles miiiiiiight just be running out of time to make a push for the postseason.

Five matches done in Marquette’s women’s soccer Big East schedule, five matches to go……. five matches against teams in front of them in the Big East standings.

Okay, yeah, that’s a little bit unfair, as the Golden Eagles are currently in 10th place with four points and a record of 1-3-1 in the conference and so only winless St. John’s is behind them. But the point still stands that Marquette’s chances of finding their way into the top six and thus into a conference tournament berth are narrowing, perhaps by the minute.

To make matters worse, two of the games still ahead — and one of them is coming up on Sunday! — are against the two teams who managed to figure out how to get 10 points in their first six matches of Big East play. Those two might be lost causes for Marquette and their 4-8-3 overall record at this point of the season, which only ramps up the importance of the other three on the slate.

Here’s the upside: As of Wednesday morning, Marquette has four points in Big East play, and the team currently occupying the sixth and final spot in the conference tournament picture only has six points. Even better: Marquette will play two of the three teams currently in a tie for fifth (and thus sixth and the very not useful seventh) place in the standings as the regular season winds down.

One of those matches is Thursday night. It’s not ultra-critical for Marquette to come away from that one with three points, but hooooooboy, let me tell you what, finishing the night with seven points, one ahead of Villanova’s six points? Definitely better than the alternative.

FUN FACT: Tess O’Connell is now just the third Marquette player since 2018 to score at least five goals in a season, and she’s the first since 2021. That both tells you a lot about how these last several seasons have been going as well as how much O’Connell is propping up the Marquette offense right now because the Golden Eagles only have 16 goals as a team. BY THE WAY: Nine goals in a year ties you for the ninth most in program history, so yeah, five is a lot…. but also kind of rare lately.

REMINDER: Marquette’s home contests are streamed nearly exclusively on FloSports, as are all Big East home matches and all league schedule contests. If you are paying full price for FloSports at $30 a month, you are doing it wrong. Please use this link to pay less than half of that, and even less if you can use a Marquette.edu email address.

Big East Match #6: vs Villanova Wildcats (4-5-4, 1-1-3 Big East)

Date: Thursday, October 17, 2024
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle

Marquette is 11-2-1 all time against Villanova. MU’s winning streak against the Wildcats came to an end in 2017 as VU broke the run of nothing but Golden Eagle victories with a 4-1 contest in Milwaukee. They won again in 2018, and the two sides went to a draw last season in Pennsylvania.

Villanova comes into Thursday without a win in each of their last three contests, and with just one win in their last nine contests. Some of that is not their fault. Is losing 2-0 at #1 Florida State bad? Not really. Is losing 3-0 at home to #21 Villanova bad? It’s not fun, but it’s not bad. They’ve gone to a draw in their last two matches, and both must have left a bad taste in VU’s mouth.

They went up 1-0 on DePaul on a 39th minute penalty kick, but then gave up the equalizer in the 63rd minute. Last time out, on Senior Day, VU went up 2-0 on a pair of goals in the first 20 minutes, but saw that lead get halved before halftime. Then, in a match that ended up featuring a combined total of 38 shots, St. John’s outshot the Wildcats 17-7 as I presume Villanova tried to bunker their way out with a win….. and gave up the equalizer with 31 seconds to play.

And it’s a bit of a freak chance goal, too.

I think I disagree with the assessment of Clutch Gene here, as that’s more “the ball deflected into my feet and it counts as a goal,” but that’s a hell of a way to eat a draw instead of a win.

Overall, Villanova is getting outshot on average this season, which is something of a bit of good news for Marquette as the Golden Eagles struggle to maintain offensive pressure themselves. This has led Susanna Soderman to hold the team lead in goals with five on the year, and she’s added a team high three assists to the seven VU goals that she hasn’t scored herself. Soderman isn’t the team leader in shots, as that honor goes to Gabby Koluch. Those 22 shots have only turned into one goal and one assist, and just seven of the shots have been on frame in the first place.

Hannah Dickinson has been holding up her end of the deal in goal for the Wildcats. For example, that equalizer from St. John’s caused her save percentage on the year to fall to .831. Villanova’s giving up shots, but they’re not giving up good looks at the net, or at least, they’re giving up looks that Dickinson can make stops on with good frequency. The volume of shots means she’s letting in more than a goal per 90 minutes on average, but that’s not the point.

Big East Match #7: at RV Georgetown Hoyas (8-2-4, 4-1-1 Big East)

Date: Sunday, October 20, 2024
Time: Noon Central
Location: Shaw Field, Washington, D.C.
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle

Marquette is 3-11-1 all time against Georgetown. All three wins happened in a row in 2010, 2012, and 2013, and the draw wasn’t far behind that in 2015. Nothing but losses for the Golden Eagles since, and Marquette hasn’t even scored against the Hoyas since 2018….. and that’s also their only goal since the 2015 draw. Sheesh.

You know who’s probably in a bad mood right now? Georgetown women’s soccer. A week ago at this time, they were ranked #18 in the country and were sailing along at 4-0-1 in Big East play, keeping pace with Xavier in that regard. And then DePaul’s second and final shot of the match went into the net, and Georgetown lost 1-0.

What an awful turnover by Georgetown on top of it.

Anyway, that was Georgetown’s second loss of the season, and the other one was against a Pepperdine team that was ranked #20 in the country at the time. At least Georgetown scored a goal themselves in that one.

The good news for Marquette is they won’t bear the full brunt of Georgetown’s bad mood, as the Hoyas will visit Providence on Thursday night before coming home for Sunday’s match. Can’t imagine what kind of torture system they’re coming up with for the Friars, given that GU is outshooting teams 19.8 to 6.7 on average this season.

If Marquette gets out of this match without giving up a goal to either Maja Lardner or Eliza Turner, then the Golden Eagles can probably say they accomplished their scouting report mission. They’re the only Hoyas with more than three goals so far this season, and they have seven and six respectively to account for 13 of GU’s 30 goals on the year. Lardner is also rolling along with four assists, so holding her without a point will be a pretty decent accomplishment. Claire Manning has the team lead in assists with six, but the Hoyas have 25 helpers on their 30 goals this season, so the passing will be dangerous all match long.

Georgetown has been splitting goalkeeper minutes between Anna Karpenko and Cara Martin. Karpenko has the smaller minute total, while Martin has been the starter in all but one match. Neither woman has to do much in terms of making saves with 19 and 12 respectively this season, and they’re close enough to even in terms of save percentage. Martin has a microscopic goals-against average of 0.25 while letting in DePaul’s winner raised Karpenko’s GAA to 0.89.