Marquette Women’s Lacrosse Can’t Complete The Comeback Against Connecticut

A 7-2 Marquette run in the second half cut a Connecticut lead from seven to just two with six minutes to play, but the Golden Eagles were unable to complete the comeback and fell to the Huskies, 17-14, on Wednesday afternoon.

Marquette is now 4-10 on the season and 2-4 in Big East action, while Connecticut is now 5-8 overall and even with MU at 2-4 in league play.

The loss puts a damper on the fun news of the game, which is Julianna Shearer becoming the first Golden Eagle to record 100 career goals. She got that on her first of five goals of the day, tying at three each less than 12 minutes in. It was also her 40th goal of the season, making her the first Golden Eagle to ever hit that mark as well. As mentioned, she would add four more to her total for the day, leaving her with 104 for her career and 44 on the season with three regular season games left to go.

Marquette and Connecticut spent the entire first half trading goals for the most part, with the Huskies managing two in a row on three different occasions. That’s how they went into the locker room at halftime with a 9-7 lead. Things fell apart for Marquette in the first 10 minutes of the second half, as UConn scored five unanswered goals to take a 14-7 lead and ultimately give themselves enough cushion to win the game.

Shearer and Riley Hill clawed two back quickly for Marquette, with both women scoring within 61 seconds of UConn’s 14th goal of the game. If the five goal run by the Huskies didn’t permanently tilt the game in their favor, shutting MU down for the next five minutes while getting those two goals back almost assuredly did it. With the score sitting at 16-9 with 15:43 to play, things were not looking good for Marquette.

And then, in a span of 90 seconds, and within 150 seconds of UConn going back up by seven, Marquette had popped in another three goals, with Hill, Megan Menzuber, and Grace Gabriel providing the offense. Gabriel would score again just before the 10 minute mark, and things got very interesting when Charlotte McGuire found the back of the net with just over six minutes left and all of a sudden, we had a 16-14 ball game.

Unfortunately, Marquette would manage just two more shots for the rest of the game, and one of those came after Jacqueline Jordan popped in an insurance goal for the Huskies to give us our final three-goal margin.

Shearer tacked on two assists to finish with seven points on the day, tying for game high honors with UConn’s Grace Nolan (4G, 3A) and Jacqueline Jordan (5G, 2A). Freshman Jules Horning made 11 saves in the game, with eight of them coming in the first half as the Huskies outshot Marquette 30-12 in the first 30 minutes.

Up Next: The Golden Eagles return home for their next two games, with Georgetown coming to town on Saturday. The Hoyas are 7-7 on the season and 5-1 in Big East play after beating Cincinnati 19-7 on Wednesday.