Marquette Women’s Lacrosse Gets Clonked By #10 Notre Dame

A 10-2 run that bridged halftime turned a 6-4 game into a blowout in South Bend on Tuesday night as #10 Notre Dame came away with the 21-9 victory against Marquette. The Golden Eagles drop to 0-2 on the season after opening up with two teams receiving votes in the national polls.

The long and short of it is you saw the reason why Notre Dame was picked to finish third in the ACC this season while Louisville, MU’s previous opponent, was picked to finish seventh. While Marquette was able to run with the Cardinals in their season opener last week, that was not the case against the Irish. Nikki Ortega had a hat trick before even 14 minutes were played (and that was still while the game was competitive early), while Cortney Fortunato and Casey Pearsall had two goals in the first half. Those three women accounted for just eight of ND’s 12 first half goals, so you can see the depth of options that Marquette was being forced to contend with.

Whatever chances Marquette had at a rally were stemmed when Sydney Cardozo threw in the final goal of the 10-2 Irish run. That goal came with 23:09 remaining and put Notre Dame up 16-6, and by rule, the clock starts running without stopping for any reason while one team has a 10 goal lead. Allison Lane would answer that goal within a minute to revert thing back to regular timing, but it was only 30 seconds after Lane’s marker when Samantha Lynch put Notre Dame back up by 10 for good.

Let’s focus on more fun issues, shall we? Marquette unloaded 22 shots in the game, scoring on nine of them and forcing ND goalie Samantha Giacolone to make nine saves to keep the Golden Eagles at bay. Putting 82% of your shots on frame is pretty good (for comparison, Notre Dame only got 73% on cage), particularly when you’re going against a defense that has a legitimate shot at contending for a national championship. Julianna Shearer led MU with four goals on the day, and Claire Costanza added to her career points and career assists records with three helpers on the day.

As was the case against Louisville, Marquette’s defense struggled against the Irish. Notre Dame fired off 48 shots in the game, and they forced MU head coach Meredith Black to pull starting goalie Molly Grozier after just 8:34. The junior had already given up five goals by that point, and while it was only a 5-2 game at that point, Notre Dame had only taken nine shots to get there. Freshman Jules Horning played the remainder, allowing 16 goals on 37 shots while making 13 saves. It’s not that much of a better ratio than Grozier, and it’s not like the switch really prompted that much of a wake up call for the Golden Eagles field players, but sometimes your goalie just doesn’t have it, y’know?

In more festive news, Marquette debuted new kits in this game. I dunno about you, but I appreciate the athletic department’s insistence on getting both men’s and women’s lacrosse the latest and greatest in uniform gear.

My apologies to Alex Gambacorta for giving this GIF a wider audience.

Up Next: Well, things aren’t getting easier for the Golden Eagles, but at least it’ll be at home. They’ll be back in the Valley Fields Bubble on Saturday for a run-in with #17 Johns Hopkins. Marquette has given the Blue Jays trouble in each of the past two seasons, including a double overtime loss in 2015, but this will be the first time that JHU will be coming to Milwaukee. Hopkins has yet to play a game this season, but they’ll kick off their season on Wednesday afternoon with a road game against American University.