Marquette women’s soccer could not handle the #3 North Carolina Tar Heels Sunday and fell 4-0. It could have been a lot uglier had it not been for Maddy Henry’s eight (!) first half saves. With the loss, the Golden Eagles fall to 0-4-1 this year.
It’s been a rough start to say the least.
The game was hot. Like seven inches from the midday sun heat index in the triple digits hot. So the conditions weren’t in Marquette’s favor. Yes both teams had to play in the same conditions but we’re talking about a team from Milwaukee, WI compared to a team from Chapel Hill, NC. One team is probably more used to it than the other.
For that reason head coach Markus Roeders emptied his bench with every player seeing at least 10 minutes of action with the exception of freshmen Macey Shock who finished with eight. Backup goalkeeper Sloane Carlson even got some quality playing time at both forward and keeper. That’s right, she entered late in the first half to play some forward, because why not? Let’s be honest: The game was essentially over at that point as Marquette had conceded three goals in a ten minute stretch to be down 3-0 after just 35 minutes. Then Carlson came in for Henry and played keeper for the final eight minutes of the match. Gotta love a multi-positional player.
Let’s look at this game by the numbers just to give you an idea of how fortunate MU was to only concede four goals. Marquette was outshot 26-4 in the game. The Tar Heels had 12 shots on target and 10 corner kicks. Marquette had none of either one of those. Shoutout to Henry who received all-tournament recognition for her valiant effort in the two losses over the weekend. She stopped 15 shots combined against Duke and UNC. I can’t wait until Big East play where her shot stopping might actually make a difference in the result.
If we look at the bright side, Marquette allowed three of the four goals in a 10 minute span from the 26 to the 36 minutes of play. If you take those unfortunate 10 minutes out of the game they only lost 1-0! Not bad at all. They also held the Tar Heels to one goal in the second half. Though that may have just been because the game was already decided.
Alrighty then let’s move on, because the Golden Eagles have a game at home on Thursday against Colorado that will ideally be a closer contest. Scoring will be of the essence as MU has netted just two goals in five total games with both coming from Carrie Madden in the same match. I guess that’s what happens when you play two top-15 teams back-to-back. Either way, it’s time to regroup for the Golden Eagles.