Marquette Men’s Lacrosse Can’t Turn Shots Into Goals In Loss To Providence

Marquette men’s lacrosse outshot Providence 27-9 in the second half, but the two teams came up even in goals, four each, as the Golden Eagles fell to the Friars, 9-7, in Rhode Island on Saturday.

Marquette falls to 6-5 on the season, but more importantly, they’re now 2-2 in Big East play with just one game left to play. They have clinched a spot in the Big East tournament thanks to Saturday losses by St. John’s and Georgetown, but seeding is yet to be determined.

Outside of PC’s Tate Boyce making only six saves on MU’s 27 shots in the second half, the game largely tilted on two sequences. Marquette scored the first goal of the second quarter when it took John Wagner less than a minute to hit the back of the net..... and that was it for the Golden Eagles in the quarter. Wagner’s marker tied the game at three, but it was 5-3 at halftime thanks to goals for PC from Austin Goltz early in the period and Keenan Assaraf midway through the frame.

Jack Zerillo scored for Marquette to make it 6-5 in favor of Providence midway through the third quarter, but it was the 45th minute of the game that provided PC with their second crucial sequence of the game. Assaraf scored the second of his two goals in the game with just under a minute to play in the third quarter, and Brendan Kearns beat the buzzer to make it an 8-5 game heading to the fourth quarter. MU would gather up a 2-1 advantage in the final period, but that was not enough to get the Golden Eagles even.

There is one nice note to come out of the loss. Senior attackman Ryan McNamara is now Marquette’s all time leading scorer. He came into the game tied with Conor Gately with 140 career points and his unassisted goal with 4:53 left in the first quarter sent him past Gately’s old record. McNamara finished the game with two goals and an assist to move the new career points record to 143. McNamara is now MU’s leader in career points, career goals, points in a season, and goals in a season.

Up Next: Marquette sticks their hand into a buzzsaw. Well, okay, not really. They’ll be back in the Valley on Saturday for their second to last home game of the season next Saturday, playing host to Duke. The Blue Devils were ranked #8 in the country in the Maverik media top 20 poll back on Monday and got a....... (checks schedule) (checks live stats) (checks Twitter) (checks Virginia Twitter) TWENTY TO ELEVEN WIN OVER VIRGINIA ON SATURDAY. Woah. Seems important to mention that Duke beat Marquette 14-1 last season in Durham.