Marquette Women's Soccer Preview: at Georgetown

Back before the season started, Marquette was the favorite to win the Big East, with Georgetown trailing right behind Marquette.  The Golden Eagles picked up nine of the first place votes, while the Hoyas snagged Markus Roeders' vote since he wasn't allowed to vote for his own team.

That made Sunday's game an important one before the season even got moving.

Now we reach the swing point of the season.  Four Big East matches down, four more remaining after this one.  We find Marquette and Georgetown locked into a four way tie atop the Big East table, even at 10 points with DePaul and St. John's.  I don't want to go so far as to say that this match between MU & GU will decide the Big East regular season title, but it's pretty dang close.

Marquette comes in riding a six match unbeaten streak.  Goalkeeper Amanda Engel has allowed just four goals in that run for a goals-against average of just 0.64.  Mary Luba has a been a force for Marquette since the start of conference play, scoring three goals and assisting on three more.

Big East Match #5: at Georgetown (8-2-3, 3-0-1 Big East)

When: Sunday, October 12, 2014, at 12pm Central
Where: Shaw Field in Washington, D.C.
Audio/Visual: The match is going to be on the Big East Digital Network, so be sure to have your Fox Sports Go app ready to go.  Live stats will be here.
Twitter Updates: @MUWomensSoccer

Not a group to be easily outdone, the Hoyas are on a seven match unbeaten streak.  They have two of their three draws this week in that run: a 1-1 tie on the road against at the time #22 West Virginia, and a 3-3 tussle with co-conference leader DePaul.  That last one was fun, because the Blue Demons blew a 3-1 lead with 34 minutes left.

In that match against DePaul, Daphne Corboz had a goal and assist to give her 111 career points.  That moved her out of a tie and all alone onto the top of the Hoyas' all time scoring list.  After an injury plagued 2013, Corboz is back on top the Big East's scoring charts with a total of 26 points and a per match average of exactly 2 points.  Vanessa Skrumbis is actually the leading goal scorer on the team, finding the back of the net eight times this season against just seven times for Corboz.

Emma Newins is the goalie of choice for head coach Dave Nolan, although Lauren Trower has had two starts this season.  Newins carries a record of 6-2-3 this season, but her stats aren't up to her usual standards.  Her goals-against average is 1.38 so far this season, well up from the sub-0.80 numbers that she put up each of the last two seasons.  Newins has made 40 saves on the season, stopping 72.7% of shots on goal.