Five different Golden Eagles scored after intermission as Marquette rallied from a 4-1 first half deficit to take a 8-7 win over Cincinnati in the season finale on Saturday afternoon. With the win, Marquette matches their best season win total in program history with 5, as well as avoiding finishing in last place in the Big East, as the loss sent the Bearcats to a 0-7 league record in 2015.
After Brooke Kovinsky knotted things at seven on a free position goal with just barely less than two minutes to play, Marquette turned to Allison Lane to get things under control. The six-foot tall freshman recorded her season high fifth draw control of the game to get Marquette the ensuing possession, and, following a timeout from head coach Meredith Black, the Golden Eagles burned themselves some clock. There's no stall warning in the women's game, so MU was able to drag the game down to the final few seconds when Hayley Baas took the game into her hands, or, well, I guess into her stick, really. She went hard to the net and beat Cincy's Meg Gulmi to the left post with just 14 seconds left to give Marquette their first win in league play this season.
Baas' late game heroics wouldn't have been possible without some gutsy play from Marquette earlier in the game. After the first 16 minutes of the game, Marquette found themselves down 4-1 and outshot 7 to 3 as well. Nicole Gleason stemmed the tide with her 20th goal of the season, and then after no one scored for a long while, Julianna Shearer cut the Cincy lead in half with a goal with 1:32 left before intermission.
Those were the first two goals of five unanswered tallies for the Golden Eagles, as Riley Hill, Claire Costanza, and finally Lane scored in the first five minutes and change of the second half. That turned things from a 4-1 lead for Cincinnati to a 6-4 lead for Marquette. Gleason scored her second of the game inbetween Dani Tunnell's third and fourth goals of the game, and that made it 7-6 favoring MU with 13 minutes to play.
Both teams clamped down from there. There was just two shots in the game over the next 11 minutes, one for each team. There were turnovers all over the place as Marquette defended their lead and Cincinnati fought to tie the game. It was ultimately a turnover in a scramble by Elizabeth Goslee that gave the Bearcats possession and a foul by Alex Gambacorta that gave Kovinsky the chance to tie the game.
Gleason and Hill both scored twice to lead Marquette in that category while Costanza, MU's all time leading scorer, had a goal and an assist to match Gleason and Hill in the points department. Tunnell had a game high four points with her four goals.
Up Next: It's time for the offseason. With a 1-6 record in league play, Marquette does not qualify for the Big East tournament later this week in Connecticut, thus the 2015 season comes to an end. We want to make sure we say THANK YOU to the seniors on this team: Jenaye Coleman, Emily Donovan, Nicole Gleason, Sandra McCartin, Molly McQuade, Anna Muzika, Alex Winey, and Briana Vargas. These seniors are permanently etched into the foundation of this program at Marquette. In some cases, for example Anna Muzika, their names are literally inked into the history books. Muzika scored the game winning goal in Marquette's first ever home win, an 11-10 victory over Detroit. Women's lacrosse at Marquette wouldn't be where it is today without the eight of you, and we thank you for all of your hard work over the last four years.