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On Thursday afternoon, the Marquette athletic department announced the 2014 men's soccer schedule. The 17 match slate features 10 home games, including five Big East contests, as well as a home game against Wisconsin and hosting the 42nd annual Milwaukee Cup against UW-Milwaukee.
As mentioned above, this season marks the 50th anniversary of men's soccer at Marquette, and it seems that head coach Louis Bennett is going to start things off with a bang. MU follows up the most successful season in program history by opening with matches away from home against the last two teams to win the NCAA College Cup. MU starts with Notre Dame, the defending champs, on Friday, August 29. That match will be in Bloomington, Indiana, as part of the adidas/Indiana University Credit Union Classic, as will the match two days later against the Hoosiers.
On the following Friday, MU returns home to start the home end of the schedule against Gonzaga as part of the Panther Invitational. No, I don't have an explanation as to why games in UW-Milwaukee's tournament are at Valley Fields. September 7th brings Oregon State to the Valley for MU's other Panther Invitational game. The home stand continues with Drake on September 13 and culminates with the 42nd annual Milwaukee Cup on Wednesday, September 17.
After a brief jaunt to DeKalb to play a weekend contest against Northern Illinois, MU returns home on September 27 to open the Big East schedule against Providence. Marquette catches a bit of a break in a scheduling quirk, as they'll defend their regular season championship with five home matches against four road contests. All five home games will take place on Saturday nights at Valley Fields.
On Wednesday, October 1, MU wraps up their non-conference schedule by hosting Wisconsin. From there, it's eight straight Big East matches to wrap up the season, with Senior Night coming on Friday, November 7, against DePaul.
The Big East quarterfinals will be at campus sites on November 11, and with a bit of luck, MU will be defending their tournament title in the semifinals (11/14) and finals (11/16) at PPL Park in Chester, Pennsylvania. With Adam Lysak graduating last year, I think we need to start petitioning the Big East to move the Big East tournament away from PPL Park.
You can get the full schedule with dates and times here, and we'll leave you with video of Coach Bennett discussing the schedule.