What In The: Bellarmine 7, #19 Marquette Men’s Lacrosse 6 (2OT)

Marquette men’s lacrosse built a 4-1 lead against Bellarmine on Sunday morning, but couldn’t hold on, eventually falling 7-6 in double overtime to the Knights. It’s the first loss of the season for the Golden Eagles, giving them a record of 3-1.

It’s a bit of a shocker of a loss for Marquette, considering that they defeated #6 Ohio State in overtime on Friday evening. That one was tight all the way, with each side taking a two goal lead at some point in the game. Coming off a hard fought win over a top 10 team, you’d like to see Marquette not have to struggle with a Bellarmine team that came in off a loss to Detroit on Friday night and was just 1-4 on the season so far.

And yet....

Ultimately the problem comes down to Marquette being unable to pounce on the Knights when given a chance. MU outshot Bellarmine 12-4 in the opening frame, but the game was tied at one goal each after 15 minutes. The shot margin dipped in the second quarter, with Marquette taking a 9-5 advantage, but that ended up going much better. MU scored three goals in a 121 second stretch to take that 4-1 lead before Bellarmine clawed one back to make it 4-2 at halftime. That’s a 21-9 shot advantage for Marquette, but they only turned that into four goals and only led by two.

Things unraveled from there. Bellarmine outshot Marquette over the final 36 minutes of the game, including a 7-3 margin in the third quarter. That led to Bellarmine making it a one goal game headed to the fourth when Will Roshkowski threw one in with 1:19 to go.

Landon Trout tied the game at five in the first minute of the fourth quarter off a feed from Brian Wall (remember that name), but MU’s Jack Zerillo scored his fourth goal of the season to post Marquette to a 6-5 lead with 12:35 to play. Those two goals counted as two of the nine shots the teams combined for in the fourth quarter, as it seemed that neither side was particularly willing to slip up. The referees forced the issue with stall warnings, though, and that’s when Bellarmine made their play. Morgan Macko scored his eighth goal of the season with 4:42 to go after a Marquette turnover and the stall clock running to knot the game at six.

Marquette lost the ensuing face off, which led to an ongoing series of possessions back and forth where neither team could find a game winner. They each had one try before regulation ended, then Marquette had the stall clock expire on them, then Brendan Connolly stabbed a pass out of the air to give the ball back to the Golden Eagles, which led to a Bellarmine penalty that MU couldn’t do anything with before time expired.

That meant a second extra session and MU could only hit the side of the net with a shot before Brian Wall (told you to remember) rolled around to the left side of Cole Blazer for the winning goal.

Gah.

Remember that Bellarmine penalty in overtime? It was their sixth penalty of the game and second straight penalty against Josh Wehn for slashing. Marquette went just 1-for-6 with the extra man in the game, with Ryan Fazio’s goal in the second quarter marking their only success. Again, it was a matter of not jumping on Bellarmine when they had the chance.

Blazer was pretty great for Marquette, making seven saves on 14 shots on goal. Unfortunately for the Marquette netminder, his counterpart was even better. BU’s John Hulsman recorded 13 saves on 19 shots on goal, including six in that ferocious flurry by the Golden Eagles in the first quarter.

Up Next: Well, things surely do not get easier for the Golden Eagles, although they will go back to playing just one game in a weekend. They return home for their next contest, which will be this coming Saturday. Robert Morris will be at Valley Fields as the opposition, and the Colonials are 3-2 on the season. However, they are receiving votes in Monday morning’s Maverik media top 20 thanks to a win over then-#15 Penn State back on February 24th.