Two Temple goals, then a Marquette goal. Two Temple goals, then a Marquette goal. Two Temple goals, then a Marquette goal.
That's how the first 27+ minutes of Thursday afternoon's women's lacrosse game between the two Big East newcomers went. One last Temple goal before halftime gave the Owls a 7-3 halftime lead, but they spent the last 22 seconds killing off a yellow card on Morgan Glassford. Hayley Baas cashed in that advantage for MU, and Amanda Bochniak scored her 17th goal of the season to give the Golden Eagles two straight goals for the first time in the game.
That made the score 7-5 with 25:30 left to play, and Marquette was in business, and even Rachel Schwaab and Molly Seefried tacking on for the Owls didn't completely end things, as there was still more than 17 minutes to play. Bochniak answered those two Temple goals a little bit more than 30 seconds later, and it was a three goal game with lots of time left.
And then the scoring stopped.
Claire Costanza pulled Marquette within two with the next goal of the game, but by that point, there was less than four minutes to play. At some point, the chances for a second year program are just up in smoke, and when Fran Meyer took a yellow card with 63 seconds left, there was a lot of smoke, much less when Nicole Tiernan scored the man-up goal with 39 seconds left in the game.
The loss drops Marquette to 5-9 overall and 1-4 in Big East play. That puts Marquette into a situation where they would lose tiebreakers with both Temple and Connecticut if both teams were to get to 3-4 in the standings. Temple & UConn are currently tied for third, and MU also trails Villanova and Rutgers in the standings. After the debacle of screwing up tiebreakers for men's lacrosse, I'm not going to say that MU is out of the Big East tournament at this point, but it definitely is going to take a screwy multi-team tiebreaker scenario to put the Golden Eagles in the field.
Bochniak and Baas both recorded two goals in the game, and Bochniak tacked on an assist to lead Marquette in points with three. Sarah Priem made nine saves along the way while taking the loss. Jaymie Tabor led Temple with three goals, while Megan Tiernan had two goals and an assist to tie Tabor for the team lead in points. Jaqi Kakalecik had five saves, including four in the first half to keep Marquette at bay to pick up the win.
Up Next: Marquette takes the field in about 24 hours out at Hart Park in Wauwatosa. They'll maintain the Philadelphia flavor as Villanova provides the opposition. The Wildcats are 7-7 overall and 2-3 in Big East games after suffering a 12-3 loss to Georgetown yesterday afternoon.