Non-conference action is over for Marquette women’s soccer, and so our eyes turn to Big East action. MU’s first league contest is coming up this weekend, so that — combined with the NCAA debuting the RPI for this season on Monday! — gives us a perfect opportunity to take a spin around the conference and see what everyone’s been up to so far in 2025. This is ostensibly our preview for Marquette/Butler on Saturday, so let’s get some of the fine details about that game out of the way up top here.
Big East Match #1: vs Butler Bulldogs (3-1-3, 0-0-0 Big East)
Date:
Saturday, September 20, 2025 Time: 7pm Central Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Streaming: ESPN+ Live Stats: Stat Broadcast Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC All-Time Series: Butler leads, 10-4-1, with shutout wins in each of the last two meetings
Alrighty, with that out of the way, we move along to the team capsule discussions. We’ll go in order of the RPI as of Thursday morning/the conclusion of play on Wednesday. That’s because there were two Big East games on Wednesday evening, which was very mean for those of us who are trying to work ahead as far as possible! I’ll let you know each team’s leader in points, goals, and assists, and who their top/primary goalkeeper is, and we’ll mention their best win and worst loss according to the RPI’s calculations.
Georgetown
Record: 4-2-2
RPI: #19
United Soccer Coaches Poll: #20
Points Leader: Maja Lardner, 10
Goals Leader: Maja Lardner, 5
Assists Leader: Natalie Means, 3
Keeper: Cara Martin; 0.88 GAA, .759 SV%
Best Win: vs #18 South Carolina, 1-0
Worst Loss: vs #79 Saint Mary’s, 2-0
I’ve got a good news/bad news situation for Georgetown. The good news is that the win over a top 10 ranked South Carolina team came six matches into the year, so you could make the argument that the Hoyas were rounding into shape. I said “were” there becuase the loss to Saint Mary’s was their most recent match. EVEN WORSE: The game winner is officially an own goal by the Hoyas, since they ended up getting shutout even though they outshot the Gaels 20-3.
I guess the upside is that the Hoyas had played their way into the USC top 25 in the first place since they started the year merely receiving votes. The downside is that Georgetown is just 2-2-1 in their last five matches because they’ve got a loss to then-#25 Vanderbilt and a tie with then-#13 Virginia in there, too. While the RPI shows them as the best team in the league right now, they do start off the year with back-to-back road matches at Creighton and at Seton Hall.
Maja Lardner is building an early case for Offensive Player of the Year in the Big East, but at tied for third in goals and tied for fourth in points, she’s going to have to do some work in league play to make that happen. Right now, the best thing working for her is the two best candidates that aren’t Lardner play for the same team and that happens to be…….
Xavier
Record: 5-2-1
RPI: #34
United Soccer Coaches Poll: #23
Points Leader: Samantha Erbach, 17
Goals Leader: Elin Hansson, 7
Assists Leader: Samantha Erbach, 6
Keeper: Maria Galley; 1.31 GAA, .679 SV%
Best Win: vs #42 Michigan State, 5-2
Worst Loss: at #73 Pitt, 2-0
The Musketeers are 1-1-0 in matches against ranked opponents this season, as Michigan State was #17 at the time of the contest, and Virginia had that same spot when they beat XU 3-0 in Charlottesville on August 21st.
My big question for Xavier heading into Big East play has to do with how Elin Hansson is getting her goals. She’s leading the Big East in goals right now, but she’s not even top 10 in shots. She’s not even top four on her own team, which is where my questions start. I get that she’s already past the total of goals she scored in all of last season and so there’s reason to ask how long she can keep this up. There’s also the fact that she got five of those goals combined in an 8-0 win over Murray State and that 5-2 clocking of Michigan State, and it’s worth mentioning that she came up empty on three shots in their 6-0 demolition of Southeast Missouri State on Wednesday.
But at some point, that’s where you’re getting goals from, and thus it’s in Xavier’s best interest to start trying to find ways to get Hansson more involved in the offense. For example: Regan Dancer and Peyton Kohls both have more shots than Hansson, but they have just three goals, all by Kohls, between them, and it took her putting in two on Wednesday to get there. Another reason why it’s probably good to maximize your offensive output? Those aren’t very good numbers from Maria Galley in net. Good news: She didn’t let in a goal in the 45 minutes she played against SEMO. Bad news: She didn’t face a shot on goal either because SEMO didn’t even attempt an official shot in the first half.
Connecticut
Record: 4-2-1
RPI: #40
Points Leader: Chioma Okafor, 6
Goals Leader: Chioma Okafor, 3
Assists Leader: 3 women tied with 1
Keeper: Ava Yamas; 0.59 GAA; .826 SV%
Best Win: at #78 Rhode Island, 2-0
Worst Loss: at #61 Texas A&M, 2-1
FUN FACT: Connecticut did nothing on Wednesday and is now #3 on this list! We’ll get to why in a second, but they weren’t there on Wednesday morning!
UConn goes into Saturday’s Big East opener riding a four match unbeaten streak, and were it not for a 61st minute goal by Maine that came about 90 seconds after the Huskies went up 3-0, they’d be on a four match shutout streak, too. That’s some impressive belt buckling by UConn and specifically by Ava Yamas in net.
To a certain extent, it’s not surprising that they had a shutout streak running. UConn has only allowed more than one goal in a game once this season. The part that probably makes the coaching staff twitchy in the face is the part where the Huskies are nearly dead even on shots this season, 68 to 65. It’s great that you’re hard to score against, and great that your defense is stingy with allowing the shots. It’s not so great that your offense is kind of bottled up just as much. The Maine match is a perfect example of what we’re talking about here. No one’s really going to complain about a 3-0 lead as the clock hits the one hour mark… but we can’t really ignore the fact that the match ended with UConn holding a 10-8 advantage in shots. Sure, they didn’t have to try very hard for the final 30 minutes but also they weren’t doing much with those 30 minutes, either.
Providence
Record: 3-2-1
RPI: #59
Points Leader: 5 women tied with 2
Goals Leader: The same 5 women tied with 1
Assists Leader: 4 women, totally different from the goal scorers, tied with 1
Keeper: Ellie Thallman; 1.33 GAA, .692 SV%
Best Win: vs #126 Army, 1-0
Worst Loss: at #78 Rhode Island, 2-0
Hi, Providence! Remember when you were in the top 40 in the RPI? That was on Wednesday morning, before you decided to lose 4-0 to Brown! PRO TIP: Do not lose crosstown rivalry games 4-0, not even if your opponent comes in with a top 75 RPI, and definitely do not lose crosstown rivalry games 4-0 at home. That’s bad!
That blowout loss kind of accentuates a point I would have made about Providence before they put that black mark on the board: PC’s offense kind of stinks, right? No one has scored more than one goal so far this season, and more to the point, no one has done more than one thing to earn a point. They have five goals from five women, four assists all from four totally different women right now. They’re about dead even with their opponents in shots for and against and no one on the team has more than 10 shots through six matches. Getting outshot 18-5 by Brown — which is a top 100 opponent, to be clear, they didn’t get waffled by a bottom of D1 level team — only drives home the point that they’re struggling to put things together on that end of the field.
In case you were wondering: Yes, Ellie Thallman’s stats looked a lot better before Wednesday. The save percentage wasn’t elite, but it was workable, and the goal-against average was less than one per match. Now? Not so much.
Creighton
Record: 3-4-1
RPI: #86
Points Leader: Ariana Mondiri, 8
Goals Leader: Ariana Mondiri, 3
Assists Leader: Ariana Mondiri, 2
Keeper: Alyssa Zalac; 1.77 GAA, .622 SV%
Best Win: at #149 Kansas City, 2-1
Worst Loss: vs #114 Iowa State, 1-0
To a certain extent, Creighton has signed up for their problems this season. No one made them go on the road to face then-#3 Duke. No one made them host #13 Arkansas. No one made them open the season at Oklahoma, which is currently #37 in the RPI. That’s 0-2-1 right there after giving up an 85th minute equalizer to the Razorbacks for a 3-3 draw. It’s to their credit that the Oklahoma game was closer on shots than it was on goals, but that’s balanced out by getting blitzed on shots by Duke in a 1-0 loss.
Ariana Mondiri leads the Jays in shots by a decent margin at the moment, and she’s producing so it’s hard to say they should do something different. However, the same can not be said for Tori Gillis, who has played about 170 more minutes than Mondiri so far this season. She’s #2 on the team in shots, but she has just one assist on the year. If Gillis is going to be that involved in the offense, she needs to start producing a bit more. At a glance, it certainly seems like it’s neat that 10 different Jays have scored a goal this season, but three of them have played less than 100 minutes, so it’s not like the team is counting on them to generate offense in the long term.
One final note: Half of Alyssa Zalac’s goals allowed this season came against Oklahoma and Arkansas. She’s got seven allowed in Creighton’s other five-plus matches (she didn’t finish the 4-0 win over South Dakota), and 1.10 or 1.20 is a much better GAA situation even if it’s not very good.
Villanova
Record: 5-3-0
RPI: #100
Points Leader: Morgan Kotch & Avrie Nelsen, 8
Goals Leader: Avrie Nelsen, 4
Assists Leader: Amalia Cardo & Alex Little, 3
Keeper: Hannah Dickinson; 0.76 GAA, .800 SV%
Best Win: vs #123 Lehigh, 4-0
Worst Loss: at #122 Princeton, 1-0
Woof, feels like we got to #100 pretty quickly here, which is probably not a great sign for the league in general this year.
We can put a little bit of a shine on Villanova’s season, because they have won five of their last six matches, and the first four of those wins were all by shutout. That’s going a long way towards explaining Hannah Dickinson’s stats on the year so far. The catch, of course, is that the non-win in that run is the loss to Princeton, and, uh, that was Princeton’s first win of the season at the time. Yeah, it stinks to lose 1-0 on a 60th minute penalty kick to a team that came into the contest without a win on the year, even if it was on the road in New Jersey. However, the Tigers also outshot the Wildcats 18-10 in the match, and that includes 9-3 after halftime. In Villanova’s defense, it was only 6-3 after the goal. That’s not great, though.
One thing to watch here is how the Wildcats use Morgan Kotch going forward. She’s played in every game and started twice, but the sophomore from New Jersey hasn’t played more than 52 minutes in any single game. Kotch is second on the team in shots behind only Amalia Cardo even with her minutes limitation, so she’s being pretty aggressive when she is on the field. If she can do that while playing more minutes, that could help VU get a little more pop in their lineup.
Seton Hall
Record: 3-1-4
RPI: #130
Points Leader: Gianna Angelillo, 10
Goals Leader: Gianna Angelillo, 5
Assists Leader: 4 women tied with 3
Keeper: Kate Kleinsmith; 0.50 GAA, .900 SV%
Best Win: vs #103 Monmouth, 3-1
Only Loss: at #111 NJIT, 3-1
Let’s start with the keeper situation in South Orange, as I suspect y’all are looking at Kate Kleinsmith’s stats and wondering how the hell Seton Hall is 3-1-4 right now. Well, the freshman from Colorado has only played the last two matches and the Pirates went to draws in both of them: Scoreless vs Wagner & 1-1 vs Lehigh. For the first six matches of the season, Avery Strohecker was playing every minute in net. Her stats? 1.17 goals allowed per 90 minutes and 75% shots on goal saved. We’ll have to wait and see if this is an official change for SHU going forward, but based on the early returns, it certainly looks like Kleinsmith should keep playing.
Those two Kleinsmith draws mean that SHU is actually winless in their last three contests, as the match before that was the loss to NJIT. I’m glad I didn’t watch that match, because the box score makes it sound miserable for a neutral party. NJIT scored on their only shot of the first half and one of just three combined between the two teams, then they scored on shot #3 and shot #4 of the second half to go up 3-0 in the 76th minute. Hey, congrats on scoring three times on five shots, but my god that’s a miserable way to go through life.
What’s not miserable is Gianna Angelillo standing fourth in the Big East in points per game this season. However, the junior from Connecticut has just one goal and no assists in Seton Hall’s last three matches, and you’ll remember that they are winless in those contests.
Marquette
Record: 4-3-1
RPI: #135
Points Leader: Jocelyn Leigh, 8
Goals Leader: Jocelyn Leigh, 4
Assists Leader: Megan Murray, 3
Keeper: Hailey Wade; 1.12 GAA, .667 SV%
Best Win: at #119 Milwaukee, 1-0
Worst Loss: at #149 Kansas City, 1-0
This is a Marquette Golden Eagles blog, so you can pop around elsewhere to get a feel for how this season is going for head coach Chris Allen and his charges. Seeing the Worst Loss being ranked lower than the Best Win certainly does tell you a lot, though.
Moving on, then…
Butler
Record: 3-1-3
RPI: #151
Points Leader: Talia Sommer, 13
Goals Leader: Talia Sommer, 4
Assists Leader: Talia Sommer, 5
Keeper: Addison Ash; 0.91 GAA, .714 SV%
Best Win: vs #240 Illinois State, 5-1
Only Loss: at #21 Northwestern, 1-0
I guess we should mention right away that Butler’s three draws fall between #127 and #154 in the RPI at the moment, with two of the three coming on the road. On one hand, fighting for a draw on the road is fine, on the other hand, going to a draw with those teams are not great results when it comes time to figure out your RPI.
Talia Sommer leads the Big East in assists, she’s tied for fifth in goals, and she’s third in points per game. If she continues along this pathway in terms of rate, she may put together a season where we have to make an argument for her to be Big East Offensive Player of the Year. However, if the Bulldogs are going to go 4-2-4 or something like that, it could get a little dicey in terms of saying that she deserves it if the team isn’t putting wins on the board in league play. I suspect that Butler might be a little bit better than the RPI says that they are, where they are currently the third worst team in the conference, but they’ve got to be able to find a way to beat teams that are largely speaking better than anyone that they’ve beaten this season and better than the teams that they went to a draw with, too.
DePaul
Record: 3-5-0
RPI: #159
Points Leader: Katelyn Jamie, 6
Goals Leader: Katelyn Jamie, 3
Assists Leader: Shayna Da Silva, 2
Keeper: Mason Hillery; 1.20 GAA, .679 SV%
Best Win: at #127 Purdue, 2-0
Worst Loss: at #225 Northern Illinois, 1-0
We should give the Blue Demons a little bit of credit. They are 0-3-0 against RPI top 80 competition this season. That’s 60% of their losses as quality opponents, and it’s hard to be bummed for them over a three-pack of 2-0 losses against those squads.
We don’t have to be very earnest about giving them credit because of the loss to Northern Illinois, though. The NIU loss coves up the loss to #220 Illinois-Chicago, too. DePaul did outshoot both of those teams in those losses, but that’s not really something that’s going to comfort you at night.
Oh, and DePaul has lost four of their last five matches going into Big East play…… which they open up against Xavier, whom you might remember from much further up on the page. Hoo boy.
St. John’s
Record: 2-3-2
RPI: #278
Points Leader: Madison Mariani, 5
Goals Leader: Madison Mariani & Jaylen Vallecillo, 2
Assists Leader: 4 women, including Mariani, tied at 1
Keeper: Kayla Bower; 1.00 GAA, .816 SV%
Best Win: at #258 Saint Joseph’s, 1-0
Worst Loss: vs #181 Columbia, 1-0
If you don’t play anyone in the top 100, it’s hard to be in the top 100. When five of your seven matches are against sub-160 RPI opponents, and three of those are sub-250, things start getting even harder for you. Going to a draw with one of those three, like the Johnnies did at home against Fairleigh Dickinson… yeah, well, you get the point.
St. John’s is winless in their last four matches before conference play starts, and they’re struggling to put the ball in the net, AND they’re essentially getting doubled up on shots on a per game basis. Kayla Bower is clearly a bright spot for them because she’s fixing a lot of problems on the back end, but that’s not that useful on days when you can’t score, and that’s what’s happened in three of the last four contests. The other one? The FDU match.
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