Sprecher Nets Double Overtime Winner For Marquette Women’s Soccer

Marquette women’s soccer is on the board in 2019 in more ways than one.

Thanks to Kylie Sprecher’s 108th minute golden goal game winner in double overtime against Michigan, Marquette now has a win and a goal on the season. By way of the 1-0 win over the Wolverines, Marquette is now 1-3-0 on the season and snapped their season starting streak without a goal for over 379 minutes.

As wonderful of a finish that is — both in terms of Sprecher putting it in the net as well as the game coming to a close — this match spent 107 minutes making it fairly clear that this was not going to be the expected result. Michigan had five shots in the first 12 minutes of the match, and Marquette keeper Maddy Henry had to save two of them. The Golden Eagles didn’t get a single shot off — shouts to Abby Hess — until right before the clock hit the 24 minute mark. They wouldn’t get a second shot until the 39th minute of the match.

By the time Sprecher got off on her run to beat UM’s Hillary Beall, Michigan had outshot Marquette 25-6. Henry had made 10 saves, four in each half during regulation, to do more than her fair share of work to keep the match level and scoreless. Sprecher’s shot was Marquette’s only attempt in both overtime sessions as the Wolverines launched at the Marquette net five times, with Henry notching saves in the 94th and 98th minutes to prolong the match.

Heck, Sprecher’s attempt wasn’t even the most wonderful idea in the world, as Beall stayed in and minded the shop. There wasn’t much leeway for Sprecher to put the ball in the net, if we’re being honest about it..... but she did thread the needle through the exact trajectory that was going to be too high and too far for Beall to track it down.

Did Marquette deserve to win the match through all of this? Maybe probably not. But they did! Perseverance has to count for something along the line, and here it counts as a 1-0 double overtime victory against a Big Ten squad. We can worry about style points at a different juncture.

Up Next: The Golden Eagles get a split weekend. They’ll start things off with a Thursday night contest up the road (so to speak) against Minnesota before returning for a Sunday home date against Utah State. The Gophers are 0-2-2 on the season after a 3-2 loss to Ole Miss on Sunday, while the Aggies are 1-2-0 after losing 3-0 to Utah in their most recent encounter. They’ll host Weber State on Wednesday before coming to Milwaukee.