For 50 minutes on Saturday in Georgia, Marquette women’s lacrosse played a competitive game with Kennesaw State. The Owls held the advantage on the scoreboard, 15-11, when the clock displayed 10 minutes remaining in the second half, but that’s a perfectly reasonable lacrosse score, even if you and I would prefer it be the other way around.
Quite obviously, the team would like it the other way around as well, so they spent the final 10 minutes of the game ramming the ball down KSU’s throat, scoring the final eight goals of the game to leave town with a 19-15 victory. Yeah! That happened! With the win, Marquette is now 3-2 on the year.
Honestly, we could rewind a bit on that run. Want to go back to the 18 minute mark where MU scored 10 of the final 11 goals of the game? How about back to the 21 minute mark, where MU scored 11 of the final 13 goals of the game? How wild is that?
The final 10 minutes of the game is loaded with starring roles for the Golden Eagles. Grace Gabriel, Megan Menzuber, and Lindsey Willcocks all scored twice, with Willcocks taking advantage of the only two yellow cards of the entire game to score with while a woman up on the Owls. Cate Soccodato tallied three points in the run, assisting on goals by Menzuber and Charlotte McGuire as well as scoring one of her own.
That’s just the offensive end of the field, though. You can’t go on a 10 minute spree without making play after play on defense. From the moment Gabriel’s goal went in with 9:37 remaining to kick off the run, Marquette won six of the eight ensuing draws, with Gabriel and Willcocks each snagging two. Marquette induced more turnovers (4) from Kennesaw State than the Owls had shots (3). None of KSU’s shots officially count as “on goal” with one going wide and two hitting the post.
Can we talk about Cate Soccodato’s goal in the run for a moment? Check out this still I grabbed from the highlight package that KSU put together, and I embedded the video below so you can watch the whole play unfold at the 1:45 mark.
This is the exact moment when Soccodato catches the pass from McGuire, who’s wearing #30 with her back to the camera. That’s Soccodato out in front of the net WITH ABSOLUTELY NO ONE EXCEPT GOALIE ALEX BUNN REALIZING SHE’S THERE. What happened here? What was KSU doing? If you watch the clip, the KSU defender on the left near McGuire left Soccodato..... while Soccodato was moving into position. I get not wanting to let McGuire get a step and let a shot rip... but it’s not like that would have been a great shot for her to take.
The really wild part about all of this? THIS WAS THE GAME WINNING GOAL. Soccodato’s goal with 4:38 to go made it a 16-15 game, and it came on McGuire’s only assist of the game. While there’s not a score bug on the video, the player combo and the timing in the video makes it clear that this is that goal. KSU would (obviously) not score again. Soccodato got that free and that open in a tie game with less than five minutes to go while Marquette was already on a run of 4-0, 6-1, or 7-2, depending on how you want to count it. That’s wild. Props to Soccodato for putting that one away, because sometimes you just get too wide open, y’know?
When it was all said and done, it was Grace Gabriel and Cate Soccodato who led the offensive charge on the day with six points each. Gabriel got hers by way of a sock trick, while Soccodato settled for a hat trick and three assists, not to mention getting the credit for the game winner. McGuire and Willcocks both had four goals as well, with McGuire adding the game winning assist to her output.
This was either the cleanest game of lacrosse ever or the official scorer is not very generous, as the two teams combined for just 13 ground balls, with no one gathering up more than one. Gabriel led Marquette with two caused turnovers and seven draw controls.
We may have something of a goalie controversy brewing, as head coach Meredith Black lifted starter Jules Horning after 28 minutes and turned to Sophia Leva. Horning let in 10 goals while making just one save, while Leva made six stops in the first 20 minutes of the second half and only let in five goals to help put Marquette in position to make their huge run late.
How about some highlights, courtesy of Kennesaw State’s YouTube channel, The Owl Network? Shoutout to KSU for actually including some road team highlights in the package.
Up Next: After their first one game weekend of the season, it’s back to two games next weekend, with both coming on the road as part of this month long excursion away from Valley Fields. On Friday, Marquette will be in Columbus to take on Ohio State, and then they’ll head 400 miles southeast to South Carolina to face High Point on Sunday. The Buckeyes are 3-1 on the season after losing 19-10 to #20 Notre Dame on Friday, while the Panthers are 1-2 after playing two top 10 teams in their most recent contests.