Women’s Soccer Rallies To Win Marquette Invitational Crown

Darian Powell is healthy enough to score game winning goals.

The redshirt senior had only played for 30% of Marquette’s minutes previous to Sunday, but she came off the bench to score the game winning goal in a 3-2 victory over Cal State Northridge. It was Powell’s second goal of the season, with the first one coming as the winning tally in MU’s 2-1 win over Illinois State earlier this year. The Golden Eagles (4-4-2) went 2-0-0 in the self-titled Marquette Invitational over the weekend, thus earning themselves the title of tournament champions.

Powell’s goal in the 84th minute was the second time this weekend that Marquette took a 2-0 lead but needed to be rescued by a goal past the 80 minute mark. Just like on Friday, MU jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the match, although this time, the early lead was more impressive.

Meegan Johnston, making her third start of the season, snapped home two goals in the first 12 minutes of the match, which under normal circumstances would have been impressive enough. In this particular case, CSUN had not given up a goal at all in their previous six matches and were running on a shutout streak of over minutes. Johnston ruined all of that effort by the Matadors with this insane bender of a goal in the fifth minute:

Imagine setting a school record for consecutive shutouts and having THAT GOAL happen five minute into your next match.

If that goal wasn’t bonkers enough for you, check out Johnston’s 12th minute strike.

Morgan Proffitt just kind of flips it into the middle of the park to keep it away from the oncoming defenders and Johnston one-hops it into the net on a running leaping header. It’s almost more absurd than her first goal, because at least bending the first one towards the net was the plan for what she was trying to do.

The first 45 minutes ended in vintage fashion for a Markus Roeders coached team. Marquette had a 2-0 lead, and the Golden Eagles smothered the life out of the CSUN team, outshooting them 7-1.

And then things went completely sideways at halftime. Whatever Marquette was doing in the first 45 minutes, it completely stopped working. Whatever Northridge was doing wrong in the first half, they stopped doing it. The Matadors finished the final 45 minutes with 10 shots against just three for the Golden Eagles as the pitch completely shifted in the other direction.

It took just 12 minutes for CSUN to get on the board, as Kourtney Kutscher scored her second goal of the season to halve Marquette’s lead. She collected a cross and smashed it into the net on a shot that you can’t really blame MU keeper Maddy Henry from instinctively ducking away from as it passed her head.

Camille Watson leveled the match in the 65th minute with an absolute rocket from the top of the 18 yard box. The Marquette defender nearest to her slipped, giving Watson the time to load her boot and blast the ball into the far upper 90.

Henry finished the match with two saves, both in the second half. The same can be said for Matadors keeper Jovani McCaskill, but she takes the loss while Henry gets the W.

How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and Marquette Wire?

Up Next: BIG EAST ACTION! The Golden Eagles will take the rest of the week off before beginning conference play next Sunday in Omaha against Creighton. The Bluejays (5-1-2) wrapped up non-conference action with a 4-2 victory over Yale on Sunday.