Drexel Burns Marquette Men’s Lacrosse

A 5-3 first quarter wasn’t good enough on Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia, as Drexel rallied to beat Marquette men’s lacrosse by a final score of 13-11. The Golden Eagles are now 3-2 on the season.

The big thing I took away from Drexel’s first few games of the season whilst writing a preview for this game was that the Dragons like to score goals. Drexel’s Collin Mailman (no, really, that’s his name) put the first two on the board inside of two minutes gone and less than 30 seconds apart. That woke up Marquette’s offense, as the Golden Eagles scored five of the next six goals of the game, including one in the closing seconds of the first quarter to stake themselves to a 5-3 lead after 15 minutes.

And then the second quarter started and Marquette forgot to score any goals. MU’s early shot domination — they outshot Drexel 14-3 in the first period — disappeared into the ether after the break. The two teams stayed even in that department, 9-8, but Drexel’s accuracy with their swings kept on trucking. The Dragons got into the net four times in the quarter, twice in the first five minutes and twice in the last, and found themselves up 7-5 at the half.

From there, a taut battle broke out. Holden Patterson used a holding penalty carrying over from the second quarter to give Marquette an EMO goal and Chris Kirschner’s second goal of the day made it a 7-7 game with 13:55 to go in the third. Drexel responded with one from Aidan Coll, and MU put two more up to go up 9-8. That was MU’s first lead since it was 5-4 early in the second quarter, but it only lasted about 70 seconds before Ryan Genord scored for Drexel and sent things to the fourth knotted at nine each.

Thomas Washington lost the opening draw to the fourth quarter, but forced a turnover from Jimmeh Koita, his Drexel counterpart, and fired in a goal to give the Golden Eagles a 10-9 lead right off the bat. Unfortunately, MU would not score again for nearly 10 minutes, committing four turnovers along the way. Drexel scored twice in there, but Kirschner’s third goal of the afternoon pulled MU back even at 11 each with 5:22 to go.

40 seconds later, Genord scored what would turn out to be the game winner. Marquette won the ensuing faceoff, but ultimately did not score there. Anthony Courcelle forced a turnover to give the Golden Eagles another shot, but MU was unable to complete the clearance. That gave Drexel the chance to burn some clock and let Nick Fox score to make it 13-11 with 49 seconds left.

Thanks to that heavy start, Marquette ended up outshooting Drexel, 40-36, across the 60 minutes of action. However, the Dragons were much more accurate, getting 23 shots on goal against just 17 for the Golden Eagles.

Kirschner’s hat trick led the way for Marquette, and he added an assist for four points. Jake Stegman was the high point man, though, getting two goals and four assists to top the chart there. Washington was a terror on draws, securing 12 ground balls while winning 17 of 26 faceoffs in the game. Courcelle’s late caused turnover gave him two in the game to lead the Golden Eagles there.

Up Next: Marquette returns to Valley Fields next weekend, and at a glance, I presume that will still be in the bubble. 42 and sunny is the early weather outlook, and last I checked, the tarp is still down on the soccer stadium field. In any case, it’ll be Robert Morris as the opposition. The Colonials are 2-2 on the season after beating High Point 15-11 on Saturday. They have a 15-8 loss to Jacksonville and a 24-12 loss to Drexel on their record, both of which are teams that also beat Marquette this season.