Marquette Women’s Soccer Steals A Draw With UWM

Molly Pfeiffer provided the heroics in the 89th minute, as Marquette women’s soccer went to a 1-1 draw with UW-Milwaukee on Friday night. It was the second straight 1-1 tie between the two squads, moving MU’s advantage in the all time series to 9-8-8. Marquette is now 2-3-2 on the season, while UWM is 3-2-2.

It was a pretty quiet first half, generally speaking, as the two teams finished the first 45 minutes in a 0-0 tie. Marquette had an advantage on shots, 7-3, to that point, but one shot every four minutes or so doesn’t make for the most dynamic soccer to watch. We’ll never know exactly what kind of adjustments either team made at halftime, because UWM’s Anna Smalley scored 35 seconds into the second half. That kind of sudden shift kind of changes both team’s tones at the same time, although the Panthers did muster up another four shots in the remaining 44 minutes and change.

As the half went on, Marquette started to look more and more threatening, but you have to ask the question as to how much of that had to do with UWM retreating to play defense. Marquette had a wonderful chance to score in the 67th minute as the Golden Eagles mustered up three shots and three corner kicks in a 100 second stretch, but they were ultimately turned away when Morgan Proffitt’s second header attempt of the sequence went wide for a UWM goal kick.

Marquette’s goal was assembled in the 89th minute off a throw in by Emily Hess. With less than two minutes to play, she didn’t have a downfield throw, so she made the easy play to Madison Dunker out near midfield. Dunker settled and launched towards the middle of the field, where it somehow came cleanly through to Pfeiffer, who turned and went far post for the equalizer. Pfeiffer had just missed a shot just barely high four minutes earlier, so it was a nice reward for the redshirt junior forward.

Pfeiffer nearly won the game for Marquette just after the start of the second overtime session, missing high by even less than her shot in the 85th minute. Marquette ended up with the only three shots of both overtime periods, with all three coming in the second 10 minute frame. The last one was a blast from Liz Bartels where if it had been three feet to the left, it would have been one of the snazzier looking goals you’ll see this year. It went wide, though, and the last few seconds evaporated off the clock.

How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com?

Up Next: The Golden Eagles take to the road, at least a little bit, for their next match. They’ll be down I-94 a bit in Evanston on Sunday evening when they take on #24 Northwestern. The Wildcats shutout Illinois State on Thursday night to run their record to 6-0-0 on the season. They’ve allowed just one goal on the season, and they’ve posted a shutout in each of their last three matches.