Marquette Men’s Soccer Falls To Kentucky In Overtime In Season Opener

An 11-9 advantage in shots overall and a 10-7 advantage in regulation did Marquette men’s soccer no favors on Friday night as they fell 1-0 to Kentucky in overtime down in Lexington. It was the season opener for the Golden Eagles, so they drop to 0-1-0 on the season.

Andrew McKelvey earns Man Of The Match honors for his game winning goal in the 99th minute. With just 116 seconds left in the overtime period, McKelvey was in the right place in the right time on a corner kick. After a Marquette defender pushed the ball to the far side of the net in the air, Kentucky’s Alex Bumpus made an awkward looking swat at the ball to send it back out towards the front of the net. That action caught MU keeper Luis Barraza off balance as McKelvey stuck his foot out and deflected the ball into the top of the net and gave UK the 1-0 victory.

Skip ahead to the 30 second mark for the golden goal:

Between the shot advantage for Marquette, and two saves in each half, that goal was pretty much the only downside of the night for Barraza and the Golden Eagles defense. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty big downside. Marquette forced Kentucky into six saves in the game, including one in overtime, and the Wildcats committed twice as many (14 to 7) fouls as Marquette, so the Golden Eagles were definitely causing problems for UK as the game went on. In fact, Kentucky committed more fouls (8) in the second half than Marquette had in the entire game.

If you wanted to, you could make the argument that Marquette deserved to win this game. Worst case scenario, you could say that MU’s 2017 development is ahead of where they were at this point in 2016. Last year, the Golden Eagles lost 4-0 to the Wildcats, and while these are both two wildly different teams from last season, getting clipped in the 99th minute is a much better performance than trailing 3-0 after 55 minutes.

Up Next: Marquette is off until next Friday when they host UIC at Valley Fields for the 2017 home opener. That match will be part of a tripleheader in the Valley as the women’s squad will be hosting the Marquette Invitational next weekend. The Flames lost a heartbreaker of their own on Friday night, falling 1-0 on the road in overtime to #25 ranked Butler. UIC will play their home opener against DePaul on Sunday before making their way to Milwaukee.