Marquette Women’s Soccer Suffers 2-0 Setback vs #7 Georgetown

Marquette women’s soccer lost 2-0 to #7 Georgetown on Sunday afternoon, and it marked the end of the best stretch of soccer that the Golden Eagles have played this season.

Obviously, the loss ends the four match winning streak that they had been on since dropping their Big East opener to Creighton. Also lost on the afternoon was MU’s shutout streak that reached broke past 336 minutes before Amanda Carolan sent one home in the at the 27 minute mark.

Carolan’s goal was particularly backbreaking for Marquette beyond the end of their shutout streak. Just three minutes earlier, MU appeared to have scored the first goal of the match, and in fact, the referee signaled that Liz Bartels had sent the ball into the back of the net. Bartels had charged the net on a Cali Pyzdrowski cross and broke up GU keeper Arielle Schechtman’s reception of the ball. To be clear, from my view, it looked like Bartels merely knocked the ball away from Schechtman while she waited for the ball to arrive for her to catch it. Bartels followed through to make sure it went in the net, Schechtman grabbed her by the arm, and the ref called it a goal.

But, after protestation from the GU team and a conference with the assistant referee on that half of the field, it was officially ruled a handball by Bartels, and the goal was wiped away. Here’s Bartels talking after the match about the play, and, well, let’s just say that it seems she doesn’t agree with the call.

By the way, I’d love to give you a highlight video for this game at some point, but it strangely doesn’t exist, even though it was broadcast on the Big East Digital Network. I don’t mean a video of the wiped away goal, I mean a video of any highlights at all. MU? Nope. Georgetown? Nope. League office? Nope. Fascinating, isn’t it?

You could try to say that Marquette had a big push in the second half to try and rally, but how much of their 9-4 shot advantage was playing well and how much was Carolan scoring her second goal of the game in the 50th minute? If you were Georgetown and you had a 2-0 lead with 40 minutes to play, aren’t you going to take a bit more of a defensive posture?

You can’t even fault Marquette’s defensive effort here. Sure, Carolan had five goals on the year coming in, so you knew she could score. Rachel Corboz, who leads the team in points and ranks second in the Big East, was held without a shot in 49 admittedly injury shortened minutes. Grace Damaska and Crystal Thomas, both of whom are in the top four in the Big East in goals, were held to two shots each, and Damaska recorded the only point of the game for the trio when she was credited with an assist on Carolan’s second goal.

Up Next: Marquette has three matches left on the season, and they’ll wrap up their road slate this coming Thursday when they visit Villanova. The Wildcats are 3-12-0 on the year and 1-5-0 in the Big East after a 1-0 loss to Xavier on Saturday.