Marquette Women's Soccer Preview: at UW-Milwaukee

Sloane Carlson's collegiate debut was about as terrible as you could draw up.  She was forced into Sunday's Marquette-LSU game when Amanda Engel was red-carded in the 56th minute.  So, on top of going into the game cold, she had to face a penalty kick from Jorian Baucom, one of the best goal scorers in the country, for her very first task on the field.  Needless to say, it went past Carlson, as did two of the next eight Tigers shots, and that's how you end up with a goals-against average of 7.86.

Per NCAA rule, anyone that's issued a red card, whether straight or as a result of two yellow cards, is automatically suspended for the next match.  That means Engel sits out against UWM tonight, while Carlson gets the start in net.  No pressure, rook.  Marquette only needs to build some positive momentum heading into the start of Big East play on Sunday, as the Golden Eagles currently sit at 3-4-2 on the season and appear to be generally headed for a second straight season without an NCAA tournament berth.

By the way, and this is kind of important: Marquette doesn't have any other goalkeepers on the roster.

Match #10: at UW-Milwaukee (4-3-1)

When: Wednesday, September 23, 2015, at 7pm
Where: Engelmann Field in Milwaukee, WI
Audio/Visual: Live stats for sure.  UWM claims that TWC SportsChannel will show it on tape delay, but I don't see it any time soon on the schedule.  Typical lying from UWM.
Twitter Updates: @MUWomensSoccer

Let's start with this: Any discussion of UWM's statistics this season is completely and totally skewed by the fact that they beat Chicago State 9-0 just 10 days ago.  So when we say things like "Callie O'Donnell leads UWM with four goals this season," we also need to point out that she scored twice against CSU.  If you say "Six Panthers have scored at least two goals this season," you have to address the fact that seven Panthers scored against Chicago State.

To put it another way: the Chicago State match literally accounts for half of the UWM goals this season, as well as nearly 60% of their assists.

If you believe in the transitive property when it comes to sports, UWM presents an interesting proposition for the Golden Eagles.  Butler owns a 1-0 win over the Panthers back on August 30, courtesy of a penalty kick goal from Sophia Maccagnone.  Butler outshot UWM 15-0 (no, that's not a typo, yes, it was zero, not ten), and you would have to figure that Marquette would like to think that they're better than Butler this season.  I'm not saying that MU has to outshoot UWM 20-0 to feel like they've accomplished something here, but if they can dominate the run of play and snap a few goals past keeper Paige Lincicum along the way, that would have to give them a boost in this rough go of a non-conference slate.