Marquette Women’s Soccer Clinches Big East Tourney Berth With 2-1 Overtime Win Over Butler

Carrie Madden’s golden goal in the 4th minute of overtime sent Marquette women’s soccer to a 2-1 victory over Butler on Sunday afternoon.

The win gave MU a 6-2-0 record in Big East play, which has them at 18 points in the league table and is enough to clinch a spot in the conference tournament for the Golden Eagles. That’s not the only news about the tournament that we have, though. The only team with more points in the Big East standings than Marquette right now is DePaul, who sits at 21. Coincidentally, both teams wrap up the regular season by facing one another on Friday night. If Marquette pulls off the W against the Blue Demons, then the two squads both finish with 21 points and share the regular season championship. HOWEVER, due to the the head to head victory by the Golden Eagles, Marquette would get the #1 seed in the conference tournament.

YAY HIGH STAKES SOCCER!

Sunday’s contest was started off with 45 minutes without a goal. MU carried the opening half with a shots advantage of 6-3 and a corner kick advantage of 3-0, but that didn’t translate into a goal. The best scoring chance of the opening frame belonged to the Golden Eagles as they were awarded a free kick just on the other side of the 18 yard box line. Morgan Proffitt’s kick went all the way to the far post, and I do mean ALL THE WAY as it bounced off the post and back into the field of play. Marquette was unable to do anything with the deflected ball, though.

Darian Powell gave Marquette a 1-0 lead fewer than four minutes into the second half. Cali Pyzdrowski lofted a ball towards the net, and a Butler attempt to head it clear ended up pushing it closer to the net. Powell ran it down and shoved it back to the far post and in on a bit of an acrobatic kick. Pyzdrowski’s effort was part of an extended sequence in front of the Butler net that officially didn’t register a shot until Powell’s scoring strike, but Marquette just kept throwing it out in front of the net, collecting, and trying again until they finally put it in the net.

Marquette’s lead would last for almost 20 minutes before Butler found an equalizer. A Butler corner kick was knocked away, but right back to Serina Kashimoto, the Bulldog that had attempted the kick. She looped back around with the ball and sent a cross out in front where Mackenzie Muchow was waiting to redirect it. Her redirect put enough English on the ball so Marquette keeper Maddy Henry could not get a clean handle on the ball and it quietly hopped into the net to level the match at one each.

Regulation would end in a 1-1 draw even though Marquette had five quality opportunities to score in the final 15 minutes. Two of them belonged to Madden, who already had a goal waved away on an offsides call in the first half.

The game winning goal by the redshirt sophomore came on a fascinating set of circumstances somewhat caused by the referee. Butler was due a goal kick after Marquette sent it out of bounds on the end line. BU keeper Hannah Luedtke carried the ball over to her water bottle for a drink before sending the kick off, so, as his right, the referee called for the running clock to be stopped while she hydrated. Luedtke eventually fired off the goal kick, but Marquette was the team that gained possession. Powell bolted up field and slotted a nifty pass to to a slashing Madden who turned it into a 1v1 on Luedtke and sent it home for the game winning goal.

As you can see from that tweet from the athletic department, the win for Marquette was also the 300th in the career of head coach Markus Roeders. He’s one of just four Marquette coaches in any sport to earn 300 wins in their career in Milwaukee.

How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and the Big East Digital Network?

Here’s some postgame reactions from game winning shooter Carrie Madden:

And head coach Markus Roeders, who got a Gatorade bath from his team after the game:

Up Next: The regular season wraps up with the aforementioned showdown with the Blue Demons. DePaul is 10-5-2 on the season and 7-1-0 in conference action after shelling #7 Georgetown with four first half goals on the way to a 4-1 win in Washington, D.C. on Sunday afternoon.