Marquette Women's Soccer Settles For Draw With South Dakota State

Marquette women's soccer bounced back to level their match with South Dakota State, but they were unable to punch through for a second goal and settled for a 1-1 draw on Sunday afternoon.  While the individual result isn't a win, it did move the Golden Eagles to four points on the weekend.  Since none of the other three teams in the Marquette Invitational were able to achieve more than one positive result, a win and a draw was all that MU needed to take home (keep?) the championship trophy for the 2015 Marquette Invitational.

Usually I save the highlight video from GoMarquette.com for the end of the recap, but I'm going to post it here, because we need to talk about how South Dakota State managed to score their goal.

I realize that it's not a perfect angle, but from my viewings of this, if you watch the foul that was whistled against Morgan Proffitt right off the top of the video, it really doesn't look like the SDSU player nor the ball are contained within the 18 yard box at the time of the foul.  As such, I really don't understand why SDSU was awarded a penalty kick in this situation.  It allowed the Jackrabbits to score their only goal of the match, and given that Marquette ended up outshooting them 26-6, it was seemingly the only way that they were going to score at all in the match.

While Proffitt was whistled for the foul that caused the South Dakota State goal, she made up for it less than four minutes later.  She was in the right place at the right time as SDSU couldn't clear a ball that Cali Pyzdrowski and Jacie Jermier teamed up to send into the box, and Proffitt was able to pop it home to level the match at one goal apiece in the 51st minute.

The match would go without another goal, although both teams had some near misses in the overtime sessions.  SDSU flicked a shot over a charging Amanda Engel, but hit the post.  As MU tried to clear that one away, Engel was out of position, and Erin Holland had to step in to smash it off the line.  Marquette had a brilliant try at a goal in the second overtime period when Ann Marie Lynch struck the bottom of the crossbar, but got just enough of the crossbar to keep it in the field of play.  That eventually turned into a corner kick for the Golden Eagles, and the traffic in front of the net got so crazy, the referee found himself on the goal line to wave off a Marquette shot as having not crossed the plane.

Proffitt was named the Defensive Most Valuable Player of the Invitational, while Jermier earned the same nod on the offensive end.  They were joined on the all tournament team by Lynch and Liz Bartels.

Up Next: The flurry of home games to start the season has come to an end.  The Golden Eagles will play their second road game of the season this coming Thursday night when they travel down south to face South Alabama.  The Jaguars (5-2) are coming off a 2-1 loss to #9 Auburn on Sunday.