Marquette Women's Lacrosse Weekend-ish Preview: at Detroit & at #10 Northwestern

I keep saying "boy, Marquette just keeps letting games slip away from them late."  It's happened a lot this year.  At #17 Johns Hopkins?  Had a lead on the Blue Jays in the second half, lost 11-8.  At Michigan?  Tied at 7 with 17 minutes left, lost 11-8.  At home against Colorado?  Tied at 7 with 15 minutes left, lost 10-8.

That is a rough way to go about your business.  I can not imagine how frustrating this is for head coach Meredith Black.  Part of this is probably adjusting to life without Claire Costanza.  The Marquette senior has averaged over 20 assists a season for her first three seasons on top of her 20 goals a year.  She's the only Golden Eagle to ever even record 30 assists in a career, so you can see how the team might struggle without that kind of influence on the field.  On the flip side, they've played five games and have let a possible win slip away from them three times.  At some point, the players on the field have to just push through and grab that win with both hands.

The Golden Eagles have five players who have scored at least five goals so far this season, led by nine from Julianna Shearer.  Amanda Bochniak has made a triumphant return from the knee injury that ended her 2015 season after just two games, totaling 12 points on five goals and a team high seven assists.  Sarah Priem has run a little hot and cold in net this season, but she and the Marquette defense are allowing just slightly more than 10 goals per 60 minutes right now.

Game #6: at Detroit (0-3)

When: Sunday, March 6, 2016, at noon Central
Where: Titan Field in Detroit, MI
Audio/Visual: No video, but we have some lovely live stats for you.
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWLax

Detroit's had an interesting season so far.  They got thrashed 22-8 by #18 Ohio State in their opener, then lost their first home game 17-13 to Oregon.  That game led to head coach Laura Maness to get suspended for their third game because she decided to go loud and public about this happening three times to one of her players.

That GIF comes to you from Deadspin, because Maness put out the video of Oregon's Jackie Moccia cracking Detroit's Lexie Kinmond in the head THREE TIMES and then gave a statement to Deadspin on that topic.

That video has since been pulled from YouTube and Detroit suspended Maness for one game for all of this.  I can't say I agree with that choice.  Again, *Oregon* had a player cracking a Detroit player in the head repeatedly, and *Detroit* suspended their coach for being very loud about this.

Then Detroit lost 13-5 to Cincinnati.  For what it's worth, Kinmond did play against the Bearcats, and she had a goal and the Titans' lone assist.  Maness will be back on the Detroit sidelines against Marquette.

Morgan Girardi leads Detroit in goals with nine, which I was actually surprised to see.  Then again, they did have those 13 goals against Oregon.  The Titans have six assists on their 26 goals this season, and Kaitlyn Wandelt's two helpers make her the only player with more than one assist.  Allison McDonough has played all 180 minutes in net for Detroit, and, uh, out of respect to not ruining her future Google searches, we're not going to type out her stats here.  You can guess.

Game #7: at #10 Northwestern (1-3)

When: Tuesday, March 8, 2016, at 3pm Central
Where: Martin Stadium in Evanston, IL
Audio/Visual: Apparently stadium renovations don't include video.  There's some nice live stats for you.
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWLax

Marquette is so screwed.

1) This is Northwestern's home opener in their freshly remodeled stadium, which looks super nice.  2) Northwestern has lost three straight games, all on the road to ranked teams after beating #4 Duke in their season opener.  3) The most recent game was a 10-4 loss to #12 Louisville, the worst loss of the three.  4) Marquette's previous encounters with noted national power Northwestern: 20-5 in 2014, 13-6 in 2015, both losses.

I really hope that Marquette beats Detroit on Sunday, because I am not holding out a lot of hope for a shocker upset of a team that owns MU coming in angry about losses and ready to open a brand new stadium.  That is a nasty combination.

Junior midfielder Sheila Nesselbush lead the Wildcats in goals this season with nine, and should not be confused with sophomore midfielder Shannon Nesselbush, who has played in three games but has yet to record a stat of any kind.  The Wildcats have an assist rate of just over 31% on the season with 11 helpers on 35 goals, and junior attacker Christina Esposito leads the way there with three.

I can't tell you if head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller thinks part of the problem is her goalie, but I know that she won't admit it publicly.  She's stuck with freshman Mallory Weisse through every minute of the season so far..... but that might have more to do with having no one else on the roster listed as a goalie.