Marquette Women’s Soccer Smashes Seton Hall

You can play a fun game with Marquette women’s soccer’s 5-0 win over Seton Hall on Sunday afternoon in South Orange. The game is called: When Exactly Was This Match Over?

Your options:

• When Alyssa Bombacino scored her first goal of the season and the first goal of the match in the 8th minute on the first overall shot of the match.
• When Katrina Wetherell put Marquette up 2-0 in the 20th minute on her second goal in the last three matches.
• When Bombacino scored her second goal of the match in the 27th minute to put MU up 3-0.
• When Seton Hall didn’t manage a shot on goal until after Bombacino’s second goal.
• When Bombacino closed out her hat trick in the 51st minute to put MU up 4-0.
• When Abby Hess did a very mean thing and slotted home MU’s fifth goal of the match with 50 seconds remaining in the match.

Personally, I think it’s Option #4 there, as Marquette’s overall play had the pitch tilted heavily in one direction from the word go. If shots were flying all over the place and MU just happened to have the ones that went in, that’s just luck to a certain extent. This was something totally different, as the Golden Eagles delivered the output that’s familiar from head coach Markus Roeders’ classic Big East contender teams.

The question, of course, is whether this is more indicative of what Marquette has rounded into at this point of the season or rather the status level of Seton Hall soccer at this point. That’s a question for a different time, though.

Tips of the cap go to Kylie Sprecher, who assisted on Bombacino’s game winner, Wetherell, who assisted on Bombacino’s second goal of the match, and Macey Shock, who followed up her golden goal from Thursday night with the helper on Hess’ last minute strike. For all of the offensive output, we have to give credit to Maddy Henry. The MU keeper made two first half saves to preserve the clean sheet as she only had to watch six shots total against her during the 90 minute match.

With wins on Thursday and Sunday, Marquette has vaulted themselves into a three-way tie for fifth place in the Big East with four matches left to play. It’s still a long way to go before locking up a top six spot and thus a conference tournament berth. However, the Golden Eagles have put themselves in prime position to claim one of those six spots as the season begins to come to a close.

Up Next: Marquette returns home for their next two contests. They’ll host Villanova (7-4-3, 3-1-1 Big East) next Sunday. The Wildcats are unbeaten in their last three contests and have beaten Seton Hall and DePaul by combined scores of 8-2 in the last two matches. VU is sitting three points ahead of MU right now, so it’s another fantastic opportunity to make a move in the standings.