Marquette Women’s Lacrosse Makes History Against Stetson

Riley Hill led five players with hat tricks for Marquette as the Golden Eagles exploded out to an early lead against Stetson and never looked back on their way to a 22-12 victory on Sunday afternoon. Marquette is now 3-2 on the season as they pick up their third straight victory.

It’s the first time in program history that the Golden Eagles have stood with a record over .500. A little bit of that is being in year six as a program, so there was more than a few losses as Marquette learned out to get on and off the bus. A little bit of that is the coaching staff’s insistence on challenging the team with tip-top non-conference opponents like Notre Dame and Northwestern. One step forward at a time, though, and this was yet another one of those bits of progression for head coach Meredith Black and her squad.

The occasion was marked by Marquette setting a program record for goals in a game with 22. That surpasses the 20 that they posted last season against Kennesaw State. The drive to the record was very much in play from the first draw of the game, as Marquette jumped out to a 7-1 lead in the first 10 minutes. After the Hatters stemmed the tide a little bit with their second of the game, MU ripped off another six goals in less than six minutes to stand with a 13-2 lead and 43 minutes left to play.

Stetson would make things a little bit interesting by scoring the next four goals of the game, but Megan Menzuber and Allison Lane put up two more to have Marquette up 15-7 at halftime. From there it was just a matter of keeping Stetson at arm’s reach and pushing forward for the record. Marquette scored the first five goals of the second half, and Charlotte McGuire’s third goal of the game officially goes into the books as the record breaking goal. Menzuber gets credit for #22 and with 12 minutes left to play, all Marquette had to do was let the 10 goal lead running clock do its work.

Gabriel had a six point day for the Golden Eagles, scoring a team high five goals on seven shots and dishing an assist as well. Riley Hill outdid her with a seven point outing on four goals and three assists, pushing her past the century mark in career points. Hill is the fifth Marquette woman to clear the barrier, and she now has 106 career points, fourth most in program history. Gabriel (89) isn’t that far behind her, nor is senior midfielder Allison Lane (92), who had three goals and an assist against Stetson. Menzuber (4G, 1A) and McGuire (3G, 1A) round out the list of hat trick accomplishments on the day.

The upside of the lopsided score is that MU got to dive deep into their bench. 26 women saw action in the game, with Julianna Horning and Sophia Leva splitting the goaltending duties right down the middle. Horning made seven stops in the first half, while Leva made five in the second.

Up Next: It’s a busy week for the Golden Eagles, as they’ll travel to Notre Dame for a Wednesday afternoon encounter before returning home to host Niagara on Saturday. The #17 ranked Fighting Irish are 3-2 on the season, with the two losses coming against top 10 ranked teams. The most recent loss, 11-8 to #7 USC, came on Saturday, so we’ll have to wait and see if the Irish are still ranked when first draw rolls around on Wednesday.