Marquette Women’s Soccer Gets First Big East Win Against St. John’s

The Marquette Golden Eagles beat the St. John’s Red Storm 1-0 on Sunday afternoon to notch their first Big East win of the season.

It was an important win for a Marquette squad that had started 0-2 for the first time ever in Big East play. They were also in the midst of a four game winless streak. All smiles for the Golden Eagles now as Darian Powell made the best of her opportunity in the 23rd minute of play to give MU the one goal advantage. The game was veryyy close the rest of the way as a pesky St. John’s team pushed hard to get the equalizer. But the Golden Eagle defense played well and Maddy Henry had herself a game with seven saves to extinguish any chance for a St. John’s comeback.

The lone goal in the game came on a St. John’s giveaway in their own half. Caroline Fink intercepted a poorly played ball and found Powell in great position down the middle of the field. The defenders couldn’t close in on Powell in time as she got into the box and sent the keeper the other way as she placed the ball in the bottom left corner of the net. It was great to see Powell get a goal after she came inches away from scoring in the 14th minute when her header bounced off the right post. With Powell’s fourth goal of the season, she moves up to eighth on MU’s all-time scoring list with 22 career goals. She has four assists along with her four goals and is the team leader in points with 12. Here’s a look back at her goal that was Marquette’s first real goal in over 200 minutes (sorry/not sorry, own goals don’t really count):

St. John’s didn’t go away without a fight as they had a slew of opportunities to get back in the game. The best one came in the 34th minute when Maia Cabrera missed a PK over the crossbar after Emily Hess was whistled for a foul inside the box. She didn’t miss by a little, either. Cabrera’s shot went skyrocketing over the bar.

Maddy Henry wasn’t called on to make a save there, but she made seven stops throughout the game to preserve the shutout. She made four big saves in the first half to stop any immediate attempt at a comeback from the Red Storm. Henry’s best save of the match came in the 50th minute when the Johnnies had a great chance to equalize on a corner kick. Cabrera sent a ball that landed at the feet of senior defender Mikhaila Martinov whose shot was parried away by Henry and eventually cleared. Henry now has four clean sheets this season.

The Golden Eagles looked a lot like how they played during their seven game win streak. They had great buildup to their attack and created very good goal-scoring opportunities. This time they were able to put the finishing touch on their attacking play thanks to Powell’s 23rd minute goal. MU finished the game with a 20-14 shot advantage over the Red Storm. Any efforts from St. John’s to storm back were either shut down by the MU defense or stopped by Henry. They did this so well early on this season and its encouraging to see them get back to playing well as a collective group. MU held St. John’s leading scorer Christina Bellero to just one shot which shows they were locked in to her throughout the game. The last important note from this game is Carrie Madden returning to the starting lineup after not being in the in the starting 11 since the September 3rd game against Mercer. She was very involved in the attack with five shots in her 52 minutes on the field. This is a very good sign for the Golden Eagles moving forward.

Here’s what head coach Markus Roeders had to say after the team’s first Big East win:

Up Next: The Golden Eagles will head down to Chicago to square off against DePaul on Thursday afternoon because Wish Field still doesn’t have lights. The Blue Demons are 5-6-1 overall with a 1-1-1 record in conference play after snapping a three match winless streak with a 2-0 victory at Creighton on Sunday.