No one is going to confuse Marquette’s 0-0-2 start to Big East play for a good way to get conference action going.
First of all, the obvious: Marquette is winless through two matches. That’s not good, right? Better than two losses, sure, but no wins is by default Not Awesome.
There’s also the process of how Marquette got two two draws. Giving up a redirected equalizer with 10 seconds left against Butler? If not bad, then actively not fun, that’s for sure. Getting outshot 24-1 by Georgetown but still
finagling a 0-0 draw out of it? That’s definitely not fun, although the fact that the Hoyas only managed to put four shots on frame to get swallowed up by keeper Mia Hurd is a bit of an accomplishment.
To review: Wildly unlucky to take a draw against Butler and insanely lucky to not get crushed by Georgetown. Again: No one’s saying this start to Big East play is a GOOD way to start conference action.
However, the fact of the matter is that Marquette is currently in a five-way tie for fifth place in the Big East. Villanova, Xavier, Butler, and UConn have more points already, while Providence and Georgetown have managed fewer than MU’s two points in the standings. FUN FACT: Georgetown is currently clinging to just one point in three matches, and yes, that’s the one point they got from their draw with MU.
Marquette still has to play three of the teams in front of them in the early standings, which is a great situation to be in. The Golden Eagles have also gotten to two points on two matches, while the other four teams in that five-way tie one spot outside the cutoff for the conference tournament have all already played three times. MU has an extra match to play in their back pocket. That’s going to even itself out pretty quickly as October rolls along, but for now: Advantage Golden Eagles.
You wouldn’t ask to start Big East play with the two matches and results that Marquette has, but for now, with the way everything else around the league has gone, it’s not terrible, either. Even better: Marquette’s about to play two matches in four days against two of the teams tied with them in the standings. That’s a great chance to create separation in the standings as we get close to the midway point of league play.
Big East Match #3: vs Creighton Bluejays (4-4-3, 0-1-2 Big East)
Date: Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 7-7-4 all time against Creighton. The series has been even ever since the Bluejays snagged two wins in the timeshifted spring 2021 season, and the two sides have traded wins since. Or, rather, they were until a 1-1 draw in Nebraska last season kept the wins even at seven each.
Creighton comes into this one winless in their last three matches, but if you presumed that they had been playing nothing but Big East matches, you already figured that part out from their record. As trend lines go for a soccer team, here’s a bad one for Creighton: If you can score two goals against the Bluejays, you win. All of Creighton’s wins are by the score of 1-0. They’ve only been shutout three times, so you generally speaking have to score multiple goals to beat them as well. With that said, two of the shutouts came by way of 0-0 draws, which includes last time out against St. John’s. Creighton did everything in their power to not get shutout in that one, outshooting the Johnnies 17-6 overall. That breaks down to 5-2 in the first half and yep, 12-4 after intermission. Still came up empty, and that’s why they’re still winless in Big East action after three matches.
Olivia Duray leads the Bluejays in points this season, getting to seven on a team high three goals and an assist. However, she’s not the team leader in shots, as Anna Bragg has her beat, 20-13. Bragg only has one goal so far this season, but if she’s leading the Jays’s offense in attempts, you’d think that eventually she’s going to break through, right? Creighton has nine assists on eight goals this year, but those are pretty spread out. Olivia Sides and Taylor Yablonski both have two assists to lead the way there.
It looks like Creighton has locked into Morgan Paley as their keeper. Kailey Hall hasn’t played since their mid-September contest against Gonzaga, making it four straight 0- minute outings for the junior from McKinney, Texas. I mentioned that sticking with Paley might be the better option for the Bluejays in our Where Are We Now conference play preview, and that’s holding together. She’s allowing less than a goal per 90 minutes this season and stopping just short of 80% of shots on frame. Both of those numbers have improved since Paley started going the full 90 minutes, so it’ll be up to Marquette’s offense to create a market correction there.
Big East Match #4: at DePaul Blue Demons (3-3-5, 0-1-2 Big East)
Date: Saturday, October 10, 2026
Time: 1pm Central
Location: Wish Field, Chicago, Illinois
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Marquette is 20-6-3 all time against DePaul. The series immediately tilted towards MU when it started in 1996 with seven straight shutout wins for the Golden Eagles. It’s been going back in that direction since the timeshifted spring 2021 season, when a 2-0 win in Chicago started a current stretch of 6-0-1 in Marquette’s favor. The draw was in 2024, and MU won 4-1 in Milwaukee last year to keep MU’s most recent loss to DePaul back in 2019. How long ago was that? Markus Roeders stepped down five days later.
DePaul is winless in their last seven matches after taking a 3-2 home loss to Butler on Saturday afternoon. I’d imagine that DePaul is slightly annoyed about that one, as Gemma Gillespie scored twice about five minutes apart in the middle of the second half to flip a 2-1 DePaul lead to what turned out to be the final margin. Two goals was the most that the Blue Demons had scored in a match since a 2-1 win over Denver waaaaay back on August 20th, which was their second match of the season. That loss to Butler came on the heels of stealing a 1-1 draw from Xavier with an equalizer in a match they got outshot 19-3. Their other Big East draw was a 0-0 affair with Seton Hall where the two teams combined for just 14 shots, so it kind of feels like DePaul is moving in something resembling a positive direction here, even with seven straight matches without a win.
Winless in seven straight means it does get a little sparse in terms of offensive highlights, but Shayna da Silva is their leader in points with seven. She gets there by tying with Katelyn Haiser for the team lead in goals with two and leading the team in assists with three. It turns out that da Silva is the only Blue Demon with more than one assist so far this season, but six helpers on 10 goals is explaining that one more than anything else.
While da Silva has the edge on the stat sheet, Marquette probably needs to worry more about Haiser. She’s the one leading DePaul in shots with 21, and that’s nearly twice as many as anyone else. It’s definitely more than twice as many as da Silva, as Carolina Capizzi is actually #2 in shots with 11 this season. Capizzi still doesn’t have a point at all this year even though she does have both Haiser and da Silva beat in total minutes played.
Mason Hillery has the team lead in minutes played because she’s the only one to play minutes in net for DePaul this season. It’s not going terribly for her, as she’s allowing precisely one goal per 90 minutes and stopping just over 78% of shots on goal. It’s hard to say that DePaul’s field defense in front of Hillery is really letting her down here, as the Blue Demons are only allowing 9.9 shot attempts per game and less than 43% of those have been on goal anyway. If anything, more offensive pressure would lighten the pressure on Hillery, as DePaul’s offense averaging just 8.5 shots per match and they put less than 40% of shots on frame.
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