At a glance, you’d think that Marquette men’s soccer started their season off okay at worst. It’s hard to say any two game set that avoids putting a number in the loss column is a bad thing, and the Golden Eagles are 1-0-1 after two matches.
However, because Marquette got outshot 12-5 by Oakland in the opener, including 9-2 after halftime, the Golden Eagles are carrying a heavy shot deficit into the second week of the season. 23 against, just 14 for.
That’s bad enough at face value, obviously, but
it’s a bigger problem that you might realize right away. Last year, Marquette outshot Big East opponents 118-77 overall. That’s 14.8 to 9.6 on average. That’s good, of course, but MU got outscored 11-5 in those eight matches, and four of those five goals came in Marquette’s lone win of Big East play last season.
As we talked about when the United Soccer Coaches preseason poll came out, non-conference play is not going to challenge Marquette the same way that Big East play will. None of MU’s non-con opponents were earning preseason votes — including the Oakland and Saint Mary’s teams that just outshot the Golden Eagles — but all three Big East squads that were in the preseason top 25 are on the league schedule for Marquette.
So, you can see the problem with MU getting pushed a little bit too hard by their non-conference opponents. Yes, there’s a lot of newcomers on this roster, so easing into the season makes sense as the team comes together. Just three of those newcomers started against SMC on Sunday, and just three more played more than a handful of minutes. For the most part, Marquette’s lineup is guys who are familiar with how head coach David Korn wants things to go… and while the record is fine, the pathway there — especially giving up a lead twice against Oakland to settle for a draw — has been rocky at best.
If things stabilize and improve as the season builds, well, okay. But we’re still a ways off from saying that this is all going great.
Match #3: at Northern Illinois Huskies (1-1-0)
Date: Thursday, August 27, 2026
Time: 7pm Central
Location: NIU Soccer Complex, DeKalb, Illinois
Streaming: Maybe?
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Marquette is 17-12-2 all time against Northern Illinois. The series dates back to a 2-0 win by MU back in October of 1966, and it was a yearly game up into the 1970s. It came back to the schedule in the 1980s, dropped out in the mid-1990s, but it’s been a pretty regular feature of the schedule since 2011. The Golden Eagles are 5-4-0 against the Huskies since then, and NIU has won by shutout in each of the past two meetings, the last of which was in 2023.
What should we take away from Northern Illinois opening up their season with a 2-0 win over Butler? If the Golden Eagles can turn in a quality performance against the Huskies, perhaps that portends good things for Big East play when they eventually face the Bulldogs. Shots in that game were pretty even, which is something that we can not say about NIU’s loss to Loyola Chicago in their second game. That one went final at 3-1, but NIU controlled the shots, 14-6. With that said, eight of Northern Illinois’ shots came after they were down 3-1, so you can see how Loyola kind of said “yeah, go ahead and knock yourself out there in the final 33 minutes of this thing.”
Tobias Crear has accounted for two of NIU’s three goals so far this season, and he’s one of a bunch of Huskies that is tied for the team lead in shots with three each. Crear had just two goals on five shots for all 17 matches he appeared in last year, so we’ll have to wait and see if this is luck or actual tactical decision making from Northern Illinois. Cayden Crawford is the goalkeeper of record here, logging all 180 minutes so far this season. With just nine shots on goal in two matches, it’s hard to take anything notable from his 1.50 goals against average or his .667 save percentage.
Match #4: at Wisconsin Badgers (2-0-0)
Date: Monday, August 31, 2026
Time: 7pm Central
Location: McClimon Soccer Complex, Madison, Wisconsin
Streaming: B1G+, which will set you back $13 for a month’s worth of access
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Marquette is 19-33-11 all time against Wisconsin. The series started in 1964, and the 2025 season marked the first time that the two teams had not played each other at least once since then, other than when a global pandemic disrupted the entirety of the sporting world. Weird! The Golden Eagles are 7-6-1 against the Badgers since 2010, but UW won the most recent meeting back in 2024.
Unsurprisingly, Wisconsin opened with the same two matches that Marquette opened with, as both Saint Mary’s and Oakland played the Badgers and the Golden Eagles during their visit to the Dairy State. Wisconsin’s matches against the pair went much better than Marquette’s did, as the Badgers recorded 5-0 wins in both contests. The SMC match was over by halftime with Cristobel Porter putting UW up 4-0 in the 43rd minute, while the Badgers scored twice in the first 10 minutes against Oakland on their way to the same halftime lead in the next game.
The Badgers have spread their 10 goals around pretty well. Markie Hrvojevic and Matthew Zachemski are the only two players to score twice, meaning that there’s a six-way tie for the second most goals on the team right now. Luke van Heukelum has a goal and three assists to end up in a tie with Hrvojevic for the team lead in points with five each.
Judewellin Michel has one save in his first two matches with Wisconsin after transferring over from Indiana following his freshman season. The 6’5” Quebecois made the stop in the 78th minute of the Saint Mary’s contest, which means he just sailed through Oakland’s five shots without much to worry about.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle
