IT IS ONCE AGAIN TIME FOR LACROSSE!
Head coach Meredith Black and the Golden Eagles get their season started coming up on Friday afternoon, and they will be trying to find a way to improve on their 2025 campaign. To be clear, 2025 was not a bad season for Marquette, far from it. Their 10-6 finish was just the third time in program history that the team had ever finished with double digit victories. However, because they went 3-3 in the Big East, they missed the conference tournament for the first
time while finishing with 10 or more wins overall.
However, it was the second time in three seasons that Marquette had won 10 or more games, so you can see the obvious upward trend of the program. If the Golden Eagles find a way to finish with a winning record in 2026, it will be the first time in program history they have had back-to-back winning seasons, and that clearly has to be a goal for Black and her charges.
The offensive attack will be led by Tess Osburn, who is MU’s top returner in both points and assists, while having to settle for tying for the best returning goals total with Hanna Bodner. Those 45 goals a year ago for Bodner helped push her towards being named Big East Midfielder of the Year in 2025, and that’s why she and Osburn are both on the preseason all-Big East team.
Marquette started the year with four women on that preseason all-conference team, but it is up in the air as to whether or not we’ll see the other two. Lauren Grady and Mary Velner did not play in Marquette’s exhibition against University of Chicago, and since both women would have been counted on to do serious work on the defensive end for the Golden Eagles, that’s slightly worrying about that side of the field for this spring.
The Golden Eagles already have a big question in net this year as eligibility ended for Brynna Nixon, the first MU goalie to ever start an NCAA tournament game. Junior Mikayla Yang has the collegiate experience after playing behind Nixon for two seasons, but her performances haven’t been knock you out stuff. That leaves the door open to freshman Jillian Howell to possibly win a training camp battle for the spot in net, but we won’t know for sure what the coaching staff is thinking until the final horn sounds on Friday’s season opener.
Game #1: vs Eastern Michigan Eagles (0-0)
Date: Friday, February 6, 2026
Time: 12pm Central
Location: Andy Glockner Memorial Bubble, Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 3-0 all time against Eastern Michigan. Last year’s 18-14 victory in Ypsilanti — which was the regular season finale and thus making this technically a back-to-back home-and-home series — was the closest of the three contests, and this will be just the second time that Marquette has played the Eagles at Valley Fields.
When I’m previewing the first game of a season and I go to the opponent’s page to find out where they landed in their league’s preseason poll…. and there’s no news article/press release about that poll…. that’s usually not a great sign for that team. That’s where we are with Eastern Michigan, except this time there’s a catch: The MAC didn’t release a preseason poll. The most recent entry to the league’s Top Stories is Detroit Mercy hiring a new head coach on August 1st. SEEMS BAD.
In any case, Eastern Michigan went 8-9 last year with a 4-2 record in the MAC. That was a new program high in victories as the Eagles are only going into their fourth season of competition right now. They secured the record breaking victory in their MAC finale a year ago, but ultimately had their season ended in the conference tournament by the same Akron team that they beat for victory #8.
On the offensive end, Eastern Michigan isn’t going to have to change much up from 2025. They return all of their top five point scorers from last year and seven of the eight women who had at least 10 points. That attack will be led by Mackenzie Blackwell, who put up 59 goals and six assists last year while shooting nearly twice as much as any other Eagle. Blackwell hung five goals on the Golden Eagles in last year’s game, so there’s no question as to whether or not they’re going to have #23 right at the top of the scouting report for this one. Tracy Grollman returns as well after leading EMU in points against Marquette last season on two goals and a team high four assists in that game, and she was second on the roster in points a year ago not to mention the team leader in assists with 16.
EMU returns both women who saw time in net last season long with adding a freshman to the roster. With Maddy Porter playing over 1,000 minutes last season, it feels like a safe bet that she’ll start the opener on Friday afternoon. She put up some pretty good numbers last season, allowing just 11.35 goals per 60 minutes and stopping over 48% of shots on goal. Porter made 14 saves in last year’s regular season finale, seven in both halves, to give Eastern Michigan a shot at winning after the Eagles were up 3-0 early and 4-1 last in the first quarter.
Game #2: vs Cincinnati Bearcats (0-0)
Date: Sunday, February 8, 2026
Time: 12pm Central
Location: Andy Glockner Memorial Bubble, Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 10-3 all time against Cincinnati. The Bearcats took the first ever meeting back in 2013, and the two teams have met in every MU season ever since. Cincinnati’s last victory came in the 2021 season by a score of 20-19, which means the Golden Eagles have won four straight in the series, including 15-9 last year in Ohio. Marquette is a perfect 6-0 against Cincinnati in Milwaukee.
This will be the first of three non-conference games for Marquette against teams from the Big 12, and I say this partially because I think it’s funny that three of the six teams in the Big 12 are affiliate members and not full time members of the conference. Cincinnati is one of the three full fledged Big 12 squads in this league, and they were picked to finish fifth in the six team preseason poll. They earned 10 points to fall just ever so slightly behind 4th place UC Davis — one of the future MU opponents in this conference — and easily ahead of last place San Diego State, as the Aztecs were picked last on all five ballots since coaches can’t vote for their own team.
That’s probably not the most surprising preseason poll result for the Bearcats after they went 8-9 last year and 1-4 in Big 12 action. Their win was, as you can guess, against San Diego State. The other problem working against the Bearcats is the fact that they have lost two of their top three scorers from last season. They’re going to have to replace 58 goals from Lauren Ottensmeyer and another 45 from Camryn Callaghan. Paige Selhorn is UC’s leading returning goal scorer, but she had just 20 a year ago. The upside for Cincy’s offense is that she had 45 assists last season while no one else on the roster had more than nine. It might take a moment for Selhorn to develop a synergy with whoever it is that turns into UC’s new leading goal scorer, but she’s clearly a talented passer, which is why she’s on the preseason all-Big 12 team.
Cincinnati has just two goalies on their roster this spring, and only one of them played for the Bearcats last year. That’s Bella Kerr, who spread out 85 minute across six appearances as a freshman. She’s the goalie that head coach Gina Thomas is familiar with, so that’s an advantage for her. However, Thomas also brought in grad transfer Emma Mielke from Niagara, which is a mark against Kerr’s chances. However however, Mielke didn’t play for Niagara in 2025 and while she’s listed on the stat sheet in 2024, she’s not listed as playing any goalie minutes in her one appearance that year. I’m not saying she can’t play for the Bearcats, I’m just saying she didn’t play for a Niagara team that was 7-11 last year. Mielke played 330 minutes across 11 appearances in 2023 and had a goals-against average of just 10.94, which is great…. but her save percentage of .367 is not so great.
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