YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles men’s lacrosse team is 1-0 in Big East play, and as somewhat accordant with team tradition, they did it in the most dramatic way possible.
We could get lost in the details of Providence going up 4-1 in the first eight minutes, or Marquette cutting the lead back to just one before the quarter ended, or Nolan Rappis tying the game at six for the halftime score or even Providence going up 10-6 on the first four goals of the second half. However, because of the DRAMA nature
of things, it’s probably best to pick it up heading into the fourth quarter after Andrew Bowman scored the final goal of the third to pull Marquette within two, 10-8, with 15 minutes to go.
To this point of the game, shots were mostly even, in fact, Marquette was up one, 21-20. That did not stay that way, as the Friars scored on their first two shots of the fourth quarter, one after Jackson Nichols and Peter Detwiler were both whistled for slashing at the same time. Bad times, especially because 1) the penalties were pending after PC scored the first goal and 2) that goal was set up by the turf monster catching MU’s Bradley Johnson mid-clearance (he limped off, but needed help getting to the trainer on the sideline) and thus turning it back over to the Friars. To review: uncaused freak accident turnover that may have injured Johnson, goal while penalties waiting, two-man-up goal, Providence up 12-8, 13:24 to go.
Marquette got one back as Providence pushed a Golden Eagle after a save by PC’s Cam Sterritt, thus keeping possession in MU’s end, and Ethan Salvia literally picked himself up off the ground and curled around front to score sidearm. 12-9, 11:52 left.
A faceoff violation gave Marquette the ball, and as MU worked it around, Carsen Brandt found Salvia up top for a big rip right down Main Street. 12-10, 11:07 to go.
Captain Peter Detwiler snagged the faceoff, and after a couple of lucky bounces worked out in MU’s favor, Nolan Rappis got a shot off from the middle of the attacking area as Bowman found him with space. 12-11, 10:03 left, and MU is somehow, even after those early PC goals, in a better position than they were heading into the fourth quarter, and with lots of time left.
Providence forced a Marquette turnover, then after they burned as much clock as they could, Lucas Lawas came up with a ground ball and Marquette had a chance to tie…. and they just couldn’t hit the net. Providence ball, Lawas made a save that extended their possession, and eventually MU forced a shot clock violation, 4:08 to go. Not great, but still a one goal game.
Salvia got saved by Sterritt on maybe not the best shot possible, and PC scored before Marquette really settled in their defense. 13-11, 3:11 left. SPOILER ALERT: This was PC’s final goal of the game.
Marquette won the draw, and worked and worked and worked and missed some shots but kept possession and worked allll the way down to this rip from Jake Bair with barely any time left on the shot clock. 13-12, 1:50 left.
Ok, so just win the draw, and see what happens, and Ty Outlaw wins it to himself….. and runs into traffic in front of the net and loses the ball. PC can burn and burn and burn…. under a minute to go… and with 10 seconds left on the shot clock, Parker Kennedy hits the post. This is probably important, because it causes a ricochet out towards midfield to assist Marquette’s transition game. Also helpful: What miiiiiiiiiight have been an uncalled push/slash by Detwiler as he caught up to PC’s attacker closest to the ball, and that let MU’s captain come up with the ground ball. 22 seconds left, and no one in black is slowing Detwiler down, so he lets it rip….. and hits the post himself. But this time, it skitters sideways and out of bounds, and Brandt was the closest one to it. MU possession, 15 seconds left, timeout Golden Eagles.
Brandt starts it off, runs at the net, doesn’t see any opportunities, circles around back, and well, you look at this because my words won’t do it justice.
Like, that’s very clear Brandt saying, “crap, I don’t have anything, gotta try something” and getting THE WORLD’S LUCKIEST BOUNCE straight to Beau Westphal on the far doorstep, doing his best Tyler Bertuzzi impression for the backporch tip in goal to even it up and send it to overtime. Brandt doesn’t even get credit for an assist there because that’s OBVIOUSLY not a pass and is CLEARLY a shot. Westphal gets a ground ball though, which is nice.
And so, four minutes of extra time. This entire closing stretch is a rough look for Providence, but as someone who watched Marquette lose three straight games in overtime against ranked opponents in Big East play a few years back while the Golden Eagles touched the ball just one time in three overtime periods, I feel slightly bad for what happened to the Friars here. They didn’t even really get a chance at the ball, as someone got whistled for something making it a violation, and MU had the ball the rest of the way. Might have been getting PC faceoff man Chris Esposito for tripping Ty Outlaw, but the camera moves and I can’t tell for certain.
Westphal misses one, but it’s tipped to the side by Sterritt, so Marquette gets a full 60 second reset to work with. Under 30 left on the shot clock, and PC’s defense pushes out on Westphal to double him and cause a problem…. well, you look at what he does with it.
Neither defender chasing after Westphal get back into the play, meanwhile Westphal finds Rappis cleanly and he turns and sees — obviously, based on what we’ve talked about already here — Ethan Salvia for the bomb into the back of the net.
Let’s go to the CINEMATIC REPLAY:
And that is Marquette’s first lead of the game. Officially, MU never led while there was time left on the clock.
All told, that is a 6-1 run in just under 14 minutes of time to move Marquette to 1-0 in Big East play and drop Providence to 0-1. With just five games in league play, this is a particularly pivotal victory for the Golden Eagles as they’ve started off conference play with a tiebreaker over the Friars.
Three of the six goals in that closedown run by Marquette were scored by Ethan Salvia, who had literally never played for MU in his two previous seasons on campus. He now has a five game goal streak, not to mention an obvious career high in goals. He also has a career high in assists here, as he helped out on three of MU’s other 11 goals on the day. Salvia’s career high six points are obviously tops on the chart today, but Nolan Rappis came close with five on four goals and an assist, which was the helper on Salvia’s winner. Carsen Brandt had four points on two goals and two assists, while Andrew Bowman got to three on a pair of goals and an assist. Colin Maloney had eight ground balls to lead MU in that department, as he did a lot of work to help Ty Ambush — who had seven ground balls himself! — to 14 faceoff wins on 18 tries.
Somehow, the highlight package courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+ is only 2:43 in length.
Up Next: Marquete is playing every weekend for the rest of the season now, and next week, they’ll hit the road for the first of two Big East games away from Valley Fields. They’ll head out to New York to face St. John’s, with start time on Saturday, April 4th, set for 11am Central, and ESPN+ will have the broadcast. The Red Storm are 2-8 on the year after taking a 21-7 loss to Villanova on Saturday in which they blew a 5-4 lead.
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