Marquette Women’s Lacrosse Comes Home After A Two Loss Weekend

Marquette women’s lacrosse dropped under .500 on the season after suffering two losses on a road trip over the weekend. First it was an 11-9 defeat against Ohio State and then a 20-9 loss after a bad second half against High Point. Marquette is now 3-4 on the season with four more road games coming up before the Golden Eagles get to play at Valley Fields again.

The loss to Ohio State ultimately has to be the one that stings a little bit more for head coach Meredith Black and her charges. The Golden Eagles took a 5-4 lead into halftime and snagged the first two goals after the break to stretch a run out to five straight. That had them up 7-4 with 24 minutes remaining, and while that’s a small lead with a lot of time, it’s an advantage.

Ohio State responded by scoring six of the next seven goals in the game, with three of the first four coming from Liza Hernandez. That made it a 10-8 game favoring the Buckeyes with 5:23 to go. Charlotte McGuire would cut the margin to just one with 4:41 to go, but Ohio State got it back just 10 seconds laster, and three Grace Gabriel shots over the final four minutes didn’t find the back of the net.

The second half against High Point was an avalanche that takes the sting out of the loss to a certain extent. It was already 7-3 favoring the Panthers at halftime, and then they scored six more goals in the first eight minutes to turn it into a 13-4 game. By the end of the game, High Point had outscored Marquette 13-6 in the second half to run away with the whole shebang. Everything there just kept tipping towards HPU, with Marquette getting outshot 42-23 at the final horn.

As we discussed in the preview for the weekend, High Point is a team that’s coming off of back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances and looks to be aimed at a third straight spot, too. Their record coming into the weekend might have been under .500, but that’s what happens when you schedule against national title contenders. I suppose you could say that this was a solid measuring stick for where and what Marquette is or is not at this season, or perhaps at this point of the season, and it’s safe to say that they came up well short of being on the same page as High Point.

Up Next: Marquette has just one game next weekend. They’ll be headed down to Florida to face Stetson on Sunday, with first draw set for 11am Central time. The Hatters are 0-4 on the season after losing 19-11 to Fresno State over the weekend. Three of their four games so far this season have been at home.