Four matches into Big East action in women’s soccer, and YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles are one of three undefeated teams left in the conference.
The Golden Eagles sit in fourth place in the standings, because
this is soccer, and there are are ties. Georgetown is a perfect 5-0-0, Xavier is right behind them with four wins and a draw, but UConn — hey, that’s the opponent in this preview! — is in between Marquette and the Musketeers in the standings. That’s because the Huskies have three wins already, while Marquette stayed unbeaten by starting off with two draws and following them up with two wins. That sets up an obvious showdown in the top half of the Big East standings as the Golden Eagles will get to the midway point of the league slate at the conclusion of Saturday’s match.
A big question for Marquette heading into this weekend is whether or not their offensive firepower from the last two matches is an ongoing development or merely a product of who they were playing. MU beat St. John’s 3-1 and DePaul 4-1 in their two Big East victories this year, but those two squads are a combined 0-6-3 in the league and 5-14-5 overall. That’s probably not good. UConn is better than those squads by all indications, so that makes Saturday night an interesting litmus test for the Golden Eagles on the offensive end of the field, and that’s without even taking the Huskies’ goalkeeper into account.
Big East Match #5: at Connecticut Huskies (7-3-2, 3-1-1 Big East)
Date: Saturday, October 11, 2025
Time: 5:30pm Central
Location: Morrone Stadium, Storrs, Connecticut
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 6-5-2 all time against UConn. The section of the series when both teams were in the Big East together originally favored Marquette, as the Golden Eagles are winless in four tries in the last four seasons. Last year’s meeting was a 3-0 defeat in Milwaukee.
The Huskies are coming in riding a pair of victories, and not just two straight since a 2-0 loss to #21 Georgetown, but two straight shutouts. They made a 24th minute goal from Chioma Okafor stand up on the road against Providence on October 1st, then Anna Carson’s first goal of the season was the difference in the 78th minute at home against Creighton on October 4th. Those were the sixth and seventh shutouts of the season this year for UConn, and that’s why Ava Yamas has a goals-against average of just 0.59 this season. She’s allowed just seven goals all season while starting all 12 matches, and Yamas has only allowed more than one goal twice this season, one of which was the loss to the Hoyas. The Huskies are pretty even on shots with their opponents this year, so they’ve kind of needed Yamas’ .851 save percentage and more than three saves per match to get to this point of the year.
Over on the other end of the field, Connecticut has just 13 goals as a team this season. Four of them have come from Chioma Okafor, and her eight points are topping the charts for the Huskies at the moment. Taylor Jenkins and Farrah Stephens-Martin are the only other UConn players with more than one goal this season, while Se-Hanna Mars and Naia Ocio have broken into double digits on shots without a lot of points to show for their hustle.
