It was always going to be an uphill battle to deal with Villanova’s shot differential on average this season, meaning their offense was going to come blasting at Marquette at Valley Fields on Saturday, and the Wildcats’ defense was going to be tough to bust through. And so, it was bad news that this happened in the 11th minute:
Bad clearing by Marquette, bad marking by Marquette, great reactions by Villanova’s Bella Panaccione on the pass and Avrie
Nelsen to realize she was going to have a ton of space to make a play. That was on Villanova’s second official shot of the game, and across the first 27 minutes of the game, the Wildcats ended up with the first seven shots of the game. So there’s the problem: VU took a lead before they really got going, and then they got going and Marquette was in trouble.
The good adjacent news — there’s not any good news in a 1-0 loss where you kinda need the points to get into the conference tournament — is that Marquette keeper Mia Hurd only had to make one save to keep Villanova off the board across the rest of the game. The other good adjacent news is that by the end of the game, Marquette got up to 10 shots, meaning they outshot the Wildcats 10-6 after VU went up 1-0’s opening flurry. On top of that, VU keeper Hannah Dickinson had to make six saves on those 10 shots to pick up the shutout. The Golden Eagles absolutely had chances to get an equalizer, but Dickinson is good enough to make sure that they got closed down.
With the loss, Marquette drops to 7-3-8 on the year and 3-2-4 in Big East play. Mixed with other results from around the league, the Golden Eagles are tied for third in the league in points at 13, matching with Seton Hall. Thank goodness they got that draw with the Pirates earlier this week, huh?
Highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+:
Up Next: The regular season finale will also be the home finale for Marquette, coming up next week Saturday. Providence comes to town to close down the 2026 season, with a 6pm Central time start on November 7th. The Friars will be motivated for that one, as they are just one point behind Marquette and Seton Hall after getting a 5-0 win over Butler on Saturday afternoon.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle
