It’s gonna take a minute before we can get some quality data feedback on exactly how this season is going so far for Marquette women’s soccer, but for the time being, it’s hard to argue with three wins, a draw, and zero losses so far.
To go a step further: Marquette has yet to give up a goal with the clock running. Both of MU’s two goals allowed so far this season have been on penalty kicks. To further the point: One of the PKs was issued on something of a freak chance handball in the box where, sure,
Gabi Retana maybe shouldn’t have had her hand out there, but also it’s not really her fault that the ball mostly speaking popped straight up in the air to hit her hand. The other PK? Only issued after VAR confirmed that there actually was a foul to call. The only times Marquette has given up goals this season has been because of luck and slow motion replay. Honestly, not so bad, especially when you consider that the replay goal was eventually balanced out by an equalizer for the Golden Eagles AND that came against a team that had 1) started the year in the top 25 and 2) just beat the #9 team in the country.
Even better: One of those penalty kicks was against Truman State, which means that Marquette is outscoring their Division 1 opponents 7-1 on the season. It also means that Mia Hurd has a goals against average of just 0.33 against D1 squads, and she’s stopping just over 85% of shots on goal in those same games. Mix in her 45 minutes against Truman State and now that’s 0.29 and 87.5% on the year.
Again: We can’t be sure exactly how difficult Marquette’s schedule has been to this point of the season. The 1-1 draw with Wisconsin is an indicator that either this is all going somewhere fun or the Golden Eagles got lucky for 90 minutes. We’ll have to wait and see for certain.
But for now: We can go into this week’s pair of home games with the mindset of “hell yeah, let’s see what happens now.”
Match #5: vs Milwaukee Panthers (1-3-0)
Date: Thursday, August 27, 2026
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 12-11-9 all time against Milwaukee. That series has pivoted towards the Golden Eagles in the past three years, as MU is 2-0-1 in that stretch, including last year’s 1-0 win over on the east side. Marquette’s longest run of favorable results was five straight (4-0-1) from 2009 through 2013.
Okay, yes, that 1-3-0 record looks bad. Yes, the 14 goals against, 4 goals for situation is not good.
HOWEVER!
Milwaukee’s losses are to RV Iowa (7-0), #16 Tennessee (4-0), and #25 Georgia (3-0), with all three coming on the road. Because you have done math, you have realized that they also beat Northern Iowa 4-0, and that one was on the road as well. I don’t think there’s anything important to take from “team earning votes/ranked team good” relative to UWM’s entire deal, especially not when the Panthers were picked to win the Horizon League this season. The HL doesn’t say how many first place votes they received, but Milwaukee had 142 points in the poll and Northern Kentucky had 119, so that’s a pretty big margin between 1 and 2.
Four different women tallied a goal against UNI, so there’s nothing important to take away from that information to this point of the season. Ashlyn Skinner-Barrett is leading the squad with seven shots attempts this season, and mostly due to that “three shutouts” thing, she hasn’t recorded a point this year. Emily Petring and Natalie Zodrow are the Panthers’ returning all-Horizon League honorees from last season, and Petring is one of the four goal scorers.
Redshirt freshman Lauren Nidey has played all but about five minutes of the game against Iowa in net for Milwaukee this season. Yes, her stats are all bad: 3.54 goals allowed per 90 minutes, .481 save percentage. Milwaukee is also getting slightly more than doubled up in shots this season, so that’s really not helping her, either. Nidey only had to make one save to blank Northern Iowa, which might be a more realistic window into what the Panthers are this season.
Match #6: vs Northern Illinois Huskies (1-1-1)
Date: Sunday, August 30, 2026
Time: 1pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 6-3-0 all time against Northern Illinois. MU suffered two losses back in 1994 and 1995 before winning four straight against the Huskies over the rest of that decade, but the series stopped in 2000 for a while. NIU got a 2-1 overtime win in 2019, but the Golden Eagles took the advantage back last August in DeKalb.
Thursday’s match might give us an idea of how Marquette measures up against Northern Illinois. The Huskies are now in the Horizon League for all of their sports that aren’t football now that the football team is in the Mountain West instead of the MAC. In any case, Milwaukee is the pick to win the Horizon League, while Northern Illinois is picked to finish seventh in the 12 team league this season. They picked up 72 points in the poll, while sixth place Wright State had 90, so there’s a little bit of a tier drop off there, at least in the eyes of the coaches in the conference.
This match also has the potential to create a bit of a measuring stick for Big East play for Marquette. Northern Illinois’ draw this season was 2-2 at DePaul in their second match of the season. Three of the four goals in that match came in the first 27 minutes, and NIU took a 2-1 lead into halftime before the Blue Demons pulled even in the 51st minute and outshot NIU 10-3 after the break. They weren’t able to punch through for a winner though.
Elsewhere on the slate so far, NIU lost 2-1 at Illinois State, giving up two goals less than five minutes apart in the second half while getting outshot 18-7 for the match. They also beat Northern Iowa 3-0 in a match that was heavily tilted in shots towards the Huskies, 11-3, in the first half, but they were only up 1-0 at the break. They’re going to travel to Missouri before coming north to face Marquette for this one, and that will give the Golden Eagles a little extra view into what to expect here.
Julianna Hill is the only Husky with more than one goal so far this season, and she has a pair on a team high six shots. The 6’0” junior didn’t start in the opener, but has been in the first 11 for the last two, and she tallied both of her goals in those two matches, one each. NIU has recorded six assists on their six goals this year, so Marquette is going to have to be wary of their creativity.
Alexandra Devory has started all three matches in net for Northern Illinois, and the freshman from Virginia has stopped 75% of shots on frame. She has a goals against average of 1.60 per 90 minutes, but that’s just the product of having a pair of two goal matches and a shutout this early in the season. I can’t help but wonder if we might actually see Lauren Pearson in net in this match. The redshirt sophomore came on in relief at halftime of the Northern Iowa match, which was their most recent contest, and more importantly to the endeavor here: She’s from Muskego. There are crazier ideas than “hey, maybe we should get her some more minutes, and what better time than a short drive from her house?”
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