Marquette Women’s Soccer Dominates Creighton

The Marquette Golden Eagles ran right through the Creighton Bluejays to capture the 3-0 victory on Sunday afternoon. With this win, they have secured a spot in the Big East quarter-finals. Time to celebrate!!!

What a great team effort they put together today to get their fourth Big East win of the season. Marquette is currently tied for 5th place with St. John’s with 12 points and DePaul is just two points back with 10 points. The reason they have clinched with one game left to play is due to the Johnnies playing in Chicago against DePaul in the last regular season game. So only one of them can advance even if Marquette somehow slips up against Seton Hall. But that’s not going to happen... I just mention it to highlight how the scheduling benefits the Golden Eagles on the final match day. Now let’s look at what happened at rainy Valley Fields because it was a fun one.

The scoring got started right away for the Golden Eagles when Carrie Madden got on the end of a beautifully played free kick by Madison Dunker in the 4th minute. It was right at Madden and she did a great job to redirect it with her head into the bottom left corner of the net. There’s no better way to start a game that’s very wet and rainy than to score right away. This goal opened up the game for the Golden Eagles and they just kept pushing forward. Madden was involved again winning a penalty kick in the 36th minute. Ryley Bugay’s penalty shot was well placed but Creighton keeper McKenzie Meola made an acrobatic diving save to her left to parry the ball away. Marquette out shot the Bluejays 13-4 in the first half.

The second half was much of the same for the Golden Eagles. They poured on the pressure and nearly scored their second goal in the 56th minute on an Eli Beard strike from 30 yards that was juuuuust over the crossbar. I could almost hear coach Roeders yelling “Just keep shooting” from the sidelines...and that they did. Madden scored her second goal of the game in the 64th minute on a shot from outside the box that slipped just under Meola. The wet conditions were definitely a factor here as the shot was right at Meola but she wasn’t able to secure it and it thankfully rolled past the goal line. But hey, we’ll take them any way we can get them.

Their third and final goal came on some great buildup by Jamie Kutey and Hailey VanDerLeest and was capped of by a fine finish under pressure by Abby Hess. She was able to slot the ball by Meola to the near post.

MU crushed the Blue Jays with a 32-16 shot advantage. That, my friends, is a season-high for the Golden Eagles. It’s also their first three goal victory since beating Drake 3-0 back on August 25. Marquette played their best game of the season and took advantage of the rain by firing away at Meola’s net. Meola looked uncomfortable on multiple shot attempts and wasn’t able to bring the ball in due to how slippery it was. On a few occasions, this led to near goals by Marquette. Most notably, a well played cross from the right side was within Meola’s reach that slipped through her hands and nearly crossed over the line. The assistant referee deemed that Meola collected it before it crossed the line but I’m not so sure. Either way, this could have easily been a four or five goal victory. Though a three goal shutout victory is a great way to bounce back from losing by that same margin to Georgetown on Thursday. Other than a few miscues, Meola had a fine 15 save effort in the loss.

Creighton had very limited opportunities in the game. They did have 16 shots but only forced goalkeeper Maddy Henry to make four saves and none were very troubling. Taryn Jakubowski led the way with three shots on target but that was the entirety of what the Bluejays accomplished on offense. MU really locked down on defense and answered the bell when needed. Markus Roeders gave his team some praise after a well played game under difficult conditions.

Here were his thoughts on the game:

Let’s take a look at what happened in the other Big East match-ups today:

• Georgetown 0 - 0 Butler
• Xavier 0 - 1 St. John’s
• Providence 2 - 1 Seton Hall
• DePaul 6 - 3 Villanova

The updated standings are as follows:

Georgetown remains in the lead with 17 points. Butler is tied for second with Providence at 16. Providence leap-frogged ahead of Xavier due to the Musketeer loss to St. John’s. Xavier drops to fourth place with 14 points. Marquette and St. John’s are tied for fifth place with 12 points. And the last team that has a chance to make the Big East tournament is DePaul sitting in seventh with 10 points. Again, Marquette is safely in and has an opportunity to finish as high as fourth place if they win and Xavier loses at Georgetown on Thursday (which is very possible). A fourth place finish is ideal because it means that MU will be able to play their quarter-final game at home. St. John’s and DePaul will battle it out in a winner take all game to qualify for the Big East tournament.

Up Next: The Golden Eagles with play at Seton Hall on Thursday to close out the regular season. Seton Hall is coming off a 2-1 defeat against Providence. The Pirates are 0-11-5 overall and 0-5-3 in the Big East.