Marquette Women's Soccer Loses To Seton Hall On Own Goal

Amanda Gulli's cross in the 81st minute deflected off of Marquette defender Kirsten Timmer, and that was the only scoring of the rainy night in South Orange, as Seton Hall defeated Marquette 1-0.

It's the second win of the year for the Pirates, and their first Big East win since October 20, 2013.  It's also the first win against MU for Seton Hall, as the Golden Eagles now have a lifetime record of 4-1-1 against the Pirates.  On top of that, it's the first goal that Amanda Engel has allowed to Seton Hall in her four years minding the Marquette net, which means no one in a Seton Hall kit has ever officially recorded a goal against Engel.  In total, it's a lousy, lousy loss for head coach Markus Roeders and his squad.

If you watch the replay of the goal, it looks like Gulli's cross was going nowhere in particular.  There's no SHU attackers close enough to Engel to connect with the ball.  Had the senior keeper misplayed the ball, there were a pair of Pirates ready to pounce, but that ball appeared to be ticketed for the sideline as it came through the box.  But it struck Timmer in what appears to be her right shoulder as she runs back to assist Engel in defending and deflects into the net.

It's a step back for the Golden Eagles, who had an offensive explosion against Creighton this past Sunday.  Stylistically, it was exactly the kind of game that Marquette wants to play, as they outshot Seton Hall 16-5, including an 11-2 advantage in the second half.  They forced SHU keeper Illissa Blackshear to make six saves to earn her clean sheet for the night.  If you were drawing up a plan to win a game, that's pretty much exactly what you want to see.  But the goal never came, and an unlucky coincidence of physics collides to hand you a loss instead.

Up Next: Marquette really could have used the three points in South Orange, because it's going to be a lot hard to get them in their next outing.  They'll be in Queens on Sunday afternoon to square off with St. John's, and the Red Storm are 10-1-0 this season.  They've won six in a row and have only allowed one goal in the past 470 minutes.