Yes, it’s early to say this, but Saturday is a must-win game for Marquette men’s lacrosse if they want to be in the Big East tournament.
We can count, y’know? Four teams make the Big East tournament. Georgetown is ranked #11 in this week’s Inside Lacrosse top 20 media poll. As we talked about last week heading into the start of league play, the Hoyas were the preseason #5 team in the country and have only lost to ranked teams this season. Denver was ranked last week but after their conference play opening
loss to the Hoyas, they’ve dropped out…. but they’ve still only lost to ranked teams, including GU. Villanova has a bunch of losses to ranked teams, but also a win over a ranked foe AND a loss to an unranked team.
Presuming that there are easy wins available against any of those three teams this season is a silly mistake. Those three games are Marquette’s last three games of Big East play, wrapping up at Denver on April 24th. Therefore: Gotta get win #2 and secure tiebreakers over both Providence and St. John’s and see what happens after that.
There’s another level to this, and it’s a slightly meaner level: St. John’s is not good.
Lacrosse Reference tags the Red Storm at #64 in the country out of 77 Division 1 squads. #61 in offensive efficiency, #57 in defensive efficiency, #65 in offensive turnover rate. According to the RPI, through games played on March 31st, St. John’s is #73 out of 77.
Marquette needed a heroic fourth quarter effort to beat Providence last weekend and start off Big East play 1-0 and sit in a three-way tie for first place with Georgetown and Villanova right now. There’s no better way to pay off that effort by going out to New York and handling business against the Johnnies to move to 2-0 in the league and seizing control of your future in the postseason with another W. This is the kind of game that teams that are close to breaking through against ranked opponents go out and win. It’s up to head coach Jake Richard and his guys to figure out how to get that done.
Big East Game #2: at St. John’s Red Storm (2-8, 0-1 Big East)
Date: Saturday, April 4, 2026
Time: 11am Central
Location: Belson Stadium, Queens, New York
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 11-2 all time against St. John’s. The only times that the Golden Eagles have come up short against the Red Storm is 1) Year 1 in the first ever meeting, which went 15-10 to a ranked Johnnies squad and 2) in 2024, when Marquette lost 13-9 after a 5-0 start on their way to going winless in league action. The Golden Eagles won 13-8 last year in Milwaukee to hold the current edge in the series.
St. John’s comes into Saturday riding a six game losing streak. Their last win was back on February 21st when they scored three times in the final four minutes to squeeze out a 9-8 win against Hofstra. Since then: two goal loss at Lafayette, four goal home loss to Bryant, 15 goal home loss to a ranked Rutgers team, one goal loss at Mercer, five goal loss at home to Brown, and then a 14 goal home loss to Villanova in the Big East opener for both squads.
I want to hover on the Mercer and Villanova losses for a second. That’s a Mercer team that Marquette beat 21-12, and St. John’s was down 11-7 with three minutes left in the third. They pulled within a goal with just under 13 minutes left in the fourth and just couldn’t push it over the finish line from there, taking a 12-11 lead, and they only got that 11th goal with 57 seconds left. The Villanova game looked like it was going to be a battle through the first quarter and a half, with STJ’s Brody Hergott finding the net to put the Johnnies up 5-4 with 11:47 left before halftime. 11-5 Wildcats at the break, and 12-5 midway through the third. Eight straight goals for VU there, and then it was 17-6 heading to the final frame. Once Villanova figured them out, it was curtains for the Red Storm.
For all of the problems facing St. John’s this season, finding goal scorers hasn’t been one of them. They have five guys averaging a goal per game, which is a pretty good way to go about things. It’s not great that they don’t have anyone averaging two goals a game, but five double digit scorers through 10 contests is a solid alternate option. Noah Plenn is their top offensive player, leading the team in goals with 15 and he’s way out in front of the pack in assists with 13. No one else has more than Brody Hergott’s six helpers, so you can see how much Plenn is impacting things. The catch is that he has 65 shots in eight appearances this season (he’s been in the last three games, so no reason to think he’ll be out against MU), and if you’re going to launch a team high eight shots a game, you’ve got to be doing better than 1.9 goals per game.
Matt Nelson has been in net for all but 34 minutes spread across three games this season for St. John’s. He’s actually holding his own in there, turning away 50% of shots on goal. Yes, that’s only fourth best in the six team Big East, but if we’re counting up problems for the Johnnies, Nelson’s ability to make saves isn’t towards the top of the list. EXAMPLE: 15 saves and 17 goals allowed in the first three quarters against Villanova lst time out. Not really his fault! Because of the other issues, Nelson is letting in 13.61 goals per 60 minutes of action this season, although getting relieved after 45 minutes and 17 goals against VU didn’t help that number out.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle
