Marquette Women’s Lacrosse Announces 2018 Schedule

If it’s almost time for basketball season, then it’s time for lacrosse schedules to be released. Marquette Golden Eagles followed through on that on Thursday, as they announced their 2018 schedule.

The slate for this upcoming spring features nine home games, which is a new record high for the Golden Eagles. It’s also a schedule full of firsts and lasts. It’s the first time that MU will play both Niagara and Stetson, and it’s the last time that Marquette will play Cincinnati, Connecticut, Temple, Florida, and Vanderbilt as a part of Big East action. Those five teams will leave the league following the 2018 campaign as the American Athletic Conference will start sponsoring women’s lacrosse in 2019.

Other than the always challenging tangle with Florida, Marquette will play three other teams in the non-conference portion of the schedule that wrapped up 2017 ranked in the IWLCA top 20. MU will play Louisville (#20), Notre Dame (#18), and Northwestern (#13) all on the road next season, and the road trip to face Johns Hopkins probably won’t be a fun jaunt through Maryland, either.

That’s fine, though. The whole point of the schedule is to get the team up to speed as Marquette heads into their sixth season of Division 1 lacrosse. Through four seasons as a member of the Big East, the Golden Eagles are still searching for their first appearance in the conference tournament. The closest that they have come was finishing in a three-way tie for third place in 2016, but after finishing in third place out of those three teams, MU was left out of the four-team tournament.

The season opens with a pair of road games, which are the aforementioned games against Hopkins and Louisville. MU will return for three straight home games, including the home opener against Central Michigan on February 16th, all of which will almost assuredly take place inside the Andy Glockner Memorial Bubble down at Valley Fields.

From there, Marquette will alternate home and road games for the rest of the season. They will open up Big East action on March 18th at home against Cincinnati, and, by luck of the draw, Marquette will get five home games as part of their nine game league schedule. They will wrap up the regular season at home against Connecticut on April 28th, which will also be the team’s yearly game in support of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

Here’s the full schedule: