The question is whether Marquette will grow from their narrow loss to #23 Georgetown or allow letting that game slip away from them carry over emotionally into this game, just two days later, much less the rest of their season.
At this point of the year, sitting at 5-4 through nine games and 0-1 in the Big East, it’s clear that the only way forward to calling this season a success will be by qualifying for the Big East tournament and getting some postseason participation on the board. We’ll get into
it more this weekend, but there’s a clear pathway to one of the four conference tournament spots for Marquette right now after giving up a lead to the Hoyas. MU can’t impact that pathway at all on Monday afternoon, but taking care of business against UC Davis might be able to set themselves up for success through the remaining five games of league action.
You just can’t let one disappointing loss turn into a second one, and then go into what amounts to a must-win conference game carrying all of that baggage. Going into a league game that you need to win coming off a win after a strong performance against a ranked team even if that was a loss? That’s an entirely different can of worms, and it’s definitely one that head coach Meredith Black will want to open up for her troops for this matinee game.
Game #10: vs UC Davis (5-4)
Date: Monday, March 23, 2026
Time: 12pm Central
Location: Andy Glockner Memorial Bubble, Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 2-0 all time against UC Davis. The meetings have been spread out a bit, with Marquette winning 5-4 in overtime back in 2015 and then 19-17 three years ago. Both previous contests were in Davis, which is a little bit outside of Sacramento.
I am going to put a sentence down here and you are just going to have to accept that it is true: UC Davis was picked to finish fourth in the Big 12 this season. They’re an affiliate member of the league to get them to six teams, along with Florida and San Diego State. Yes, the Big 12 stretches from central Florida to southern California in this case. The Aggies ended up two points ahead of Cincinnati in the preseason poll, and for what it’s worth in that regard, Marquette beat the Bearcats 17-10 in Milwaukee earlier this season.
After lopsided losses in two of their first three games (23-7 vs #5 Stanford and 20-4 vs Cornell in Colorado), UC Davis has turned things around as of late, at least in the win/loss column. After taking a 10-9 loss at Oregon on February 28th to drop to 2-4 on the season, the Aggies come into Monday afternoon with three straight wins. They beat Delaware State 20-5 as the back half of that trip up to Eugene (ASIDE: The Hornets traveled all that way to lose that badly in addition to their 20-3 loss to the Ducks!), then came home for wins against Stonehill (19-7) and Marist (15-4). I presume both of those east coast squads were on a Spring Trip to California.
With those big outputs as of late, slowing down the UC Davis offense is going to be a bit of a trick. Lacrosse Reference marks the Aggies at #22 in the country in offensive efficiency, and Jane Fox averaging three goals a game has to be a big part of that. Her 27 in nine contests leads the team, and she’s the only player north of 20 goals so far this year. That easily sends her through as the team leader in points, and Fox is just short of an assist per game on averaga as well. Lauren Picardi is #2 on the team in goals with 16 even though she missed two games along the way and she’s coming off a hat trick against Marist. Rhea Cosand will be a notable part of Marquette’s defensive attention as well since she has a team high 13 assists on the year to make her part of the group of six Aggies that’s averaging at least a point per game.
The defensive side of things is much worse off for UC Davis, even if they’ve held their last three opponents to seven or fewer goals. Emily Altshuler is only stopping 33% of shots on goal, which probably helps explain how Lacrosse Reference rates the Aggies’ defensive efficiency at #122 in the country… out of 133 teams. The latest run of things has helped drift her goals-against average down to just 11.52 per 60 minutes, although it would probably be lower if she hadn’t been lifted while UC Davis was up 7-1 on Delaware State after the first quarter.
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