Marquette Women’s Soccer Preview: at #12 Georgetown

Alrighty, non-conference play is over for YOUR Marquette Golden Eagles women’s soccer team, and there’s only one way to treat that: Throw every single bit of information about it into the trash.

See, Marquette is 3-6-0, and you can easily make the argument that they’re lucky to get the three wins. In those three contests, Marquette was outshot 50-30, and it’s only that close because MU beat out Colorado State 19-12 in their non-con finale.

Of course, you can also argue that Marquette is unlucky to have six losses. Three of those came in overtime, and two of those were by 1-0 margins. The Golden Eagles forced things to extra time without a goal either way, and a cruel twist of fate has them taking the coin flip loss in both.

So chuck all of it in the bin.

League play means the start of a new season. All that matters for Marquette is earning enough points to make their way into the Big East tournament. They missed it last year, marking the first time in program history that the Golden Eagles did not qualify for the conference tournament at the end of the season. That’s not ideal, especially with only one NCAA tournament appearance in the last five seasons.

They’re almost assuredly not getting into the national championship field this year without winning the Big East tournament. Thus, all that matters is getting into that six team event. The path to qualify begins on Sunday, and..... aw, crap, that team to start??

Big East Match #1: at #12 Georgetown Hoyas (6-2-1)

Date: Sunday, September 29, 2019
Time: Noon Central
Location: Shaw Field, Washington, DC
Streaming: Big East Digital Network on Caffeine.tv and the Big East’s YouTube channel
Live Stats:
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC

Marquette is 3-7-1 all time against Georgetown. The Golden Eagles are currently on a seven match winless streak against the Hoyas, as all three wins came in a row in 2010, 2012, and 2013. MU has lost five straight against Georgetown.

Currently, the Hoyas are on a four match winning streak where they’ve outscored their opponents 18-4, and they haven’t allowed a goal in over 240 minutes. Did I mention that they’re ranked #12 in the country? Yeah, it’s right up there.

Okay, that 18-4 is a little misleading, as they beat Ohio 7-0 with every goal coming in the first 65 minutes. Still, it’s 11-4 in the first three games of the streak, and Princeton accounted for three of those goals. Georgetown’s two losses this season are to then-#21 NC State and then-#5 Virginia. The draw was scoreless and came against #10 Duke.

Yeah, they’re pretty good, and yeah, Marquette’s probably in a lot of trouble.

Amanda Carolan leads the Hoyas this year with five goals. Paula Germino-Watnick, however, has the lead in points. Germino-Watnick has four goals and six assists to edge out Carolan for the team lead, 14-13. Three more Hoyas have hit the back of the net at least twice this season, so Georgetown has more than a few options when it comes to scoring goals.

Freshman Anna Leet has taken the majority of minutes in net this season. She hasn’t started every match, but she has started every one of GU’s matches against ranked foes. Still, her stats aren’t particularly defensively friendly. Leet is allowing 1.34 goals per 90 minutes, and she’s stopping just 65% of shots on goal. Generally speaking, that sounds like it’s potentially good news for Marquette. However, it’s also not a secret that the Golden Eagles have had trouble generating offense this season. If they want to take advantage of Leet’s potential weaknesses, then that power outage has to get solved.