You can’t just draw your way through a Big East schedule of women’s soccer and expect it all to work out for you in the end. Marquette had two very different draws in their first two matches of league play, and it was definitely time to start putting wins up, especially with the Golden Eagles getting to six draws overall this season last time out.
Thankfully, Marquette did get a W on Wednesday night, beating Creighton 2-1 at Valley Fields. That keeps the Golden Eagles unbeaten through three Big East
contests at 1-0-2. Thanks to the existence of ties, there are still five unbeaten teams in conference play, but it’s definitely nice to be one of them.
As the game drifted past the 30 minute mark, Marquette was a little bit lucky to be still scoreless with Creighton. The Bluejays had mustered up three shots in less than a minute’s time, and MU keeper Mia Hurd got credit for a save on all three of them. Eventually the Golden Eagles pushed control of the ball to the other end of the field, and they earned a corner kick just past the 32 minute mark.
I can’t tell you for sure what happened, because the ESPN+ broadcast never takes a replay of MU’s corner kick attempt. What I can tell you is that SEVERAL Golden Eagles immediately threw their hands up in the air as the Bluejays turned the corner kick away. If we trust their on the spot recording, then the referee’s VAR decision that a handball occurred is 100% correct, and so MU took a 1-0 lead on a Megan Murray penalty kick.
That pulls Murray into a tie with Haley Christianson for the team lead in goals, and it’s Murray’s first goal since tallying a pair back in MU’s second game of the season. All fairness to her, she missed four games on a call up to the Philippine national team, but it’s nice to have her scoring back on the board. A pretty easy PK for her, as CU keeper Morgan Paley makes a tiny little hop to the right juuuuuust long enough before Murray makes contact to give Murray a chance to decide to go left with the shot and roll it in.
That 1-0 lead lasted for precisely 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
It feels like the worst part about this is that Marquette’s back line just loses the race back to try to defend after the Jays smashed the ball forward. The defender that picks up Gabby Wagenfuhr immediately doesn’t make a mistake by selling out to stop her from going wide, there’s help in place towards the inside, and then Wagenfuhr’s shot is a moon shot that I don’t know if Mia Hurd would have had a chance to play if she wasn’t three yards off the line when she kicks it. The trajectory of it is just weird, nothing you’d ever teach someone to do intentionally, but it works as an equalizer in this match.
That kept the match tied til halftime, although Hurd had to make another save shortly before the half, and MU’s Kaylie Sheehan hit the crossbar, too.
It took nearly 20 minutes into the second half for the two teams to record two combined shots, and as luck would have it for the Golden Eagles, both had gone the Jays’ way. MU didn’t get their first shot of the second half until the 68th minute, and probably because of that, you could maybe get a sense that things were tilting towards Creighton a little bit. Maybe not full control, just that the Bluejays had better chances to find an equalizer.
But this chance in the 82nd minute was pretty great.
You could show that to children to explain how passing to set up a goal should work. Emily Fix draws in the defense, slides it to Kaylie Sheehan’s run, Sheehan holds it long enough to get Paley to commit, and snaps it in. Textbook clinical finishing from the Golden Eagles for the 2-1 lead late.
All MU had to do from there was defend, and that they did, not even allowing another official shot the rest of the way. How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and ESPN+?
Kind of a quick turnaround to Saturday afternoon for the next match, especially since it’s a road game, but at least it’s not a big travel situation for Marquette. They’ll be down south on I-94 for a 1pm Central time start against DePaul on October 10th and ESPN+ will have the broadcast for that one. The Blue Demons dropped to 3-3-5 on the year and 0-1-2 in Big East action with a 3-2 loss to Butler last weekend. DePaul was up 2-1 with 20 minutes left in that one but couldn’t hold on.
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