I want to say that this mid-week Big East game doesn’t matter all that much to Marquette women’s lacrosse.
It’s against a ranked opponent, it’s on the road, it’s against the preseason favorite in the league, it’s against the conference rival that Marquette has never beaten…. there’s a lot going on here that can all total up to “yeah, well, doesn’t seem very likely as a W, now does it?”
Except here’s the thing: Marquette is 1-1 in the Big East after beating Xavier this past weekend. They have just four
games left to play, including Wednesday’s contest out in the Rocky Mountains. Based on general team profiles right now, I feel comfortable saying that Marquette will be favored to beat Butler on April 18th. That means that MU’s pathway to a top four finish and a spot in the Big East tournament will depend on their results in the other three games, and Wednesday is one of those three.
So, you can’t just handwave it away, even if Marquette might not be favored to beat the #19 ranked team in the country. In any case, it certainly seems like Marquette is going to have to beat a ranked team at some point if they want to get into the conference tournament. That’s because Villanova is now #24 in the country, and MU gets the Wildcats this coming weekend at home. No, it’s not favorable scheduling for the Golden Eagles, but that’s lending the importance to Wednesday as well: Might be easier to beat the first of the two ranked teams you’re playing this week, just because of fresher legs, right?
Is it likely that Marquette comes away from Wednesday with their 11th straight loss to Denver? Sure. But if they can scrape together the most consistent 60 minutes of lacrosse of the season, it’s possible that they pull the upset and thus make the rest of the season just a little bit easier in terms of locking in that Big East tournament spot.
Big East Game #3: at #19 Denver Pioneers (9-2, 2-0 Big East)
Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Time: 12:30pm Central
Location: Peter Barton Stadium, Denver, Colorado
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 0-10 all time against Denver. The series started in 2016 and has continued with the Pioneers as an affiliate member of the Big East. The closest that the Golden Eagles have gotten to a win was a 12-11 double overtime game in Milwaukee in 2021, and the Pios have won the last two meetings by 14 and 13 goals respectively.
As expected and predicted by their spot in the Inside Lacrosse/KANE preseason top 25 poll, Denver is good this season. Their smallest margin of victory in their nine wins this season is four goals and that’s because Towson scored the final five goals of the game over the final five minutes to make the final score 15-11. I feel like that barely counts. Their two losses this season both came against teams that were ranked at the time. First they fell in overtime, 12-11, against then-#13 Stony Brook. Then they lost 12-6 back on March 26 to then-#5 Michigan. In the Stony Brook game, Denver scored the last three goals of regulation to force the extra session, and then only lost on a SBU goal with two seconds left. As for the Wolverines, DU’s Olivia Ripple scored to make that score 7-6 Michigan with 4:44 left to play in the third quarter. Denver never scored again, which is how that final got a little bit lopsided, and even then, no one scored at all in the final seven minutes.
Denver is averaging 14.6 goals per game this season and is coming off a “sub-par” 14-2 win over Butler back on Saturday. Slowing down Olivia Ripple will be MU’s top priority, as she’s leading not just the Pioneers in goals and points with 43 and 55 respectively, but she’s the top per-game scorer in both categories in the Big East. She’s one of two women averaging a hat trick per game and the only one averaging more than 4.5 points per game. The problem with putting in the effort to slow down Ripple is that teammate Caroline Keil is the other woman averaging a hat trick per game. Marquette is going to have to keep track of where Keil is, as she does not start for the Pios, but she’s still just 11 shots behind Ripple in attempts department.
On top of all of that, Marquette still has to manage Ryan Dineen, who leads the team with 15 assists, as well as deal with Evan Thomsen-Marr, who is just one assist behind Dineen right now. It’s quite the complicated feat: Do you work on denying the passes to Ripple and Keil, or do you work on making it hard for Ripple and Keil to shoot?
Even with Marquette averaging 13.6 goals per game this season, keeping up with Denver won’t be fun. That’s because goalie Lexi Gwaku has a goals-against average of 7.45 goals per 60 minutes of action this season. Her .471 save percentage doesn’t sound super-hot, but it’s not that far behind the numbers for Leah Warehime and Jada Brandon, at least as listed on BigEast.com right now, and MU just saw both of those women in net recently against Georgetown and Xavier respectively. So, it’ll kind of be easier to score! Ish. Maybe.
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