Men's Lacrosse Game 3 Preview: At #17 Ohio State (0-2)

When: Saturday, February 22, at 11am Central
Where: Woody Hayes Athletic Center in Columbus, OH
Audio/Visual: You'll have to pay for video streaming, but OSU's student radio is calling the game and that streams for free. Live stats will be here.
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteMLax

Marquette lacrosse is off to a roaring start in 2014. After suffering an 13-6 loss to #19 Lehigh largely due to struggling on face offs, the Golden Eagles righted the ship last Saturday as they split the face offs down the middle with Hofstra and came away with the win by a final score of 11-9. That performance got Marquette onto two Top 20 ballots and picked up weekly honors from the Big East for both Tyler Melnyk and Liam Byrnes.

Now Marquette returns to the place where it all began. Last season, the Golden Eagles played their first ever Division 1 lacrosse game against Ohio State in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. The Buckeyes carried the day by a final of 18-8, but now things have changed. OSU might carry the same #17 ranking that they had last February, but it's a very different situation that both teams find themselves in.

While Marquette is riding high off of what is probably the biggest win in program history, Ohio State has been kicked in the face twice this season. First, it was a triple overtime loss to #11 Johns Hopkins. Ok, two ranked teams, it went through two sudden victory sessions without either team netting a goal, just a great game, right? Well, in a nationally televised broadcast last Sunday night, Ohio State lost to unranked Massachusetts when Nick Mariano beat Greg Dutton as time wound down in overtime. Let's watch!

Look, I'm sure that Ohio State is super pissed about how their season has started and they're more than excited to take their frustrations out on the Golden Eagles in their home opener. But Marquette has to feel kind of excited themselves. After all, Ohio State has won just 25.5% of their face offs this season, and they've failed on all nine of their extra man opportunities so far this season. On the upside for OSU, they've also only allowed three extra man chances for their opponents, and they've kept the ball out of the net for all of them.

Junior midfielder Jesse King has found the back of the net the most for Ohio State so far this season, potting five goals. Fellow junior midfielder Turner Evans has the team lead in points at 10 on two goals and eight assists. That effort so far this season earned Evans ECAC Offensive Player of the Week honors to open the season in the conference. Sophomore attacker Carter Brown, who had seven points against MU last season, leads the OSU field players with six ground balls so far this season, while the overall team lead goes to Dutton with eight. The senior goalie has played every minute in net for the Buckeyes this season with a goals-against average of 9.93 and a save percentage of 47.6%.