Marquette men’s soccer needed to win on Saturday night in New York City.
That was the only way they were staying alive for one of the four spots in the Big East tournament. A loss or a draw would have rendered their regular season finale irrelevant.
And so, it was real bad news when Luca Fargnoli scored less than three minutes — technically, because of the UConn match, Fargnoli scored twice precisely three minutes apart — on the second shot of the match for St. John’s.
It’s a high angle strike for Fargnoli, thus leaving Marquette keeper Cameron Simpson in a little bit of a bad position to close it out properly, and so it is what it is from that perspective. Mix that with Simpson needing to save STJ’s first shot of the match less than a minute earlier, and boy, that did not feel like a fun time towards that “win or be eliminated” target.
Thankfully, the lead did not hold.
Just a quick dispossession by Mateo Stoka on the offensive side of midfield, and with St. John’s not settled, he pushed it through to Tomiwa Adewumi for his 10th goal of the campaign right as the clock hit 14:00. That’s the first time any Golden Eagle has hit 10 goals in a season since Luka Prpa did it waaaaaaaaay back in 2016. My goodness, it’s been a long time.
That came on Marquette’s third shot of the match, and so at the time, shots were 3-2 favoring the Golden Eagles. Things went 7-4 in STJ’s favor for the remaining half-hour-ish of the first half as the two squads stayed knotted at 1 up through the break. Four of the first five shots of the second half went to the home team, and so things started to feel like the match was tipping away from Marquette. The chances just weren’t quite there, and so on.
But it started to tip back in Marquette’s direction, just long enough, just far enough, that MU was able to push forward. Dominic Firs pushed to the post, maintained possession through some defending from the Johnnies, and with STJ keeper Nico Bezama charging, Firs pushed the ball out across the net. I don’t know why or how or whatever, but none of the Johnnies’ defenders slipped deeper with Bezama out on the post, and so the ball just kept right on sliding….
Right until Drew Mullins was there on the right post for the tap-in and the 2-1 lead in the 79th minute. 11-ish minutes of defending later, and Marquette was 0-5-1 on the year and 3-4-0 in Big East play. That makes the Golden Eagles still alive for the postseason and gives them three league wins for the first time since 2021.
How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+?
Up Next: The regular season wraps up on Friday, November 6, when Akron comes to Valley Fields. First kick is set for 6pm Central, and ESPN+ will have the broadcast. Marquette has to win that contest if they want to be in the 4 team Big East tournament, but the fact of the matter is that they will need help from elsewhere in the league to make that happen. We won’t know if MU gets that help until Friday night, as all six contests in the Big East are set to start at 6pm Central. Akron will be coming into the match with a record of 10-1-4 on the year after beating Villanova 5-0 on Saturday afternoon.
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