Marquette Women's Lacrosse Loses Nailbiter to Georgetown, 13-12

Marquette freshmen led all scorers with four goals on Saturday afternoon in our nation's capital, including a go-ahead goal with just over 11 minutes left, but the Golden Eagles could not hold on and ended up losing to Georgetown, 13-12.

The loss drops MU to 3-3 in Big East play, and 6-10 overall.  3-3 is good enough for a tie with Temple for fourth place in the Big East right now.  Thankfully, the Golden Eagles hold the tiebreaker over the Owls, so if the season ended right now, Marquette would be in the conference tournament.  That could change, though, but as long as Marquette wins their season finale at home this coming Friday, they'll be in the four team field.

The game was a back and forth affair all afternoon long, with the largest margin either way ending up at three for Georgetown thanks to two quick Francesca Whitehurst goals right after halftime.  No one ever scored more than three goals in a row, with the Hoyas doing that twice, and Marquette pulling off the feat once.  MU saved their three goal burst for when it mattered most: trailing by two, 11-9, with 22 minutes remaining.  Julianna Shearer and Grace Gabriel took advantage of free position shots to tie the game at 11 with 12:52 remaining, and Soccodato's go-ahead goal came on a feed from Riley Hill with 11:10 remaining to play.  The assist was Hill's fifth of the game, giving her 21 for the season and making her just the third Golden Eagle to ever register more than 20 assists in a season.

Georgetown took just two shots in that 11 minute run, as the Golden Eagles forced four turnovers, including one by goalie Sarah Priem, to give them the opportunity to take the lead late in the game.  Marquette's good feelings did not last that long, though, as Kristen Bandos, Georgetown's leading scorer, rattled home a pass from Taylor Gebhardt just 35 seconds after Soccodato's goal to knot the game at 12.  That gave both teams 10 minutes to find a game winning goal.

Georgetown got that game winner on a free position shot from Morgan Rubin with 4:34 to play.  Marquette actually couldn't even manage a shot over the final 10 minutes.  They turned the ball over three times, including a game killing turnover with about a minute left in an extra woman opportunity that came on a penalty right off the draw after Rubin's goal.  From there, the Hoyas were able to just hold the ball for the final three minutes and change.  This is the second time in three years that Georgetown has managed to win a game against Marquette because they just held the ball late and Marquette was called for a series of fouls in an effort to force a turnover.  One part of this will be solved next year when the NCAA mandates a 90 second shot clock.  We might be a long ways off from anyone approving adding protective equipment and more physicality to the women's game.

Soccodato might have scored the most goals in the game, but it was Hill that led all scorers with a whopping seven points on the day.  She added a goal in each half to her five helpers to earn that total which ties her for the second most points in a game as well as second most assists in a game in program history... or at least history coming into this season.  Allison Lane scored her 30th goal of the season at the 10:53 mark to extend her goal streak to 19 games as well as become the second Golden Eagle to ever score 30 goals in a season.  The other one, as you'll recall, is Julianna Shearer, who scored twice in this game to move her single season record up to 34.  Hayley Baas scored her 87th career goal in the first half to extend her career record in that department.

Up Next: While Marquette let a chance to clinch a conference tournament berth slip through their hands here, all is not lost.  They have one final game remaining in the regular season, and it's a fortuitous game in a number of ways.  First, it'll be the home finale as well as Senior Day for the first four year players in Marquette lacrosse history.  Emotions will be running high for that kind of an event, of course, but that's not the only good news for Marquette.  They'll be hosting Cincinnati for the regular season finale, and the Golden Eagles have proven that they've got the Bearcats' number.  MU had managed just one win in each of the previous two seasons as a part of the Big East, and both of those wins came against Cincinnati.  There's no reason to think that this year won't be any different, as the Bearcats are 4-12 on the season and 0-6 in league play.