Marquette Women’s Soccer Preview: vs #20 Georgetown

The final two matches of Marquette Golden Eagles women’s soccer regular season schedule are both at home.

Both of them have the possibility of being crucially important for the Golden Eagles when it comes to getting into the Big East tournament.

Marquette currently sits in a tie for fourth place in the Big East at 12 points and a record of 4-4-0. Their tie-mate is Connecticut, but the Huskies have an extra match to play as they are 4-3-0 right now. Behind the two of them is Providence and St. John’s, both with a record of 3-3-1 and 10 points in the standings. That’s seven matches in for both the Friars and the Red Storm, so they have an extra match to play over Marquette as well.

That takes us out to seventh place in the standings, and only the top six will qualify for the conference tournament. With each of the next three teams in the standings still having three matches to play, Marquette doesn’t even control their own destiny right now. If all three teams were to win their remaining three matches, all three bounce past MU even if the Golden Eagles win their remaining two games.

As you can see from that big ol’ # at the top of the page, Marquette’s not in a particularly strong place heading into Match #9 on the schedule, either. It’s going to be hard for the Golden Eagles to snag three points on Thursday night, although it somehow might be easier than you think for MU to come away with at least one point.

All the Golden Eagles can do is put their collective best foot forward right now. Play the best soccer that they can for 180 minutes and see where it takes them. First up on that list, tonight in the Valley is......

Big East Match #9: vs #20 Georgetown Hoyas (9-0-6, 5-0-2 Big East)

Date: Thursday, October 21, 2021
Time: 7pm Central
Location: Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloFC
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWSOC

Marquette is 3-8-1 all time against Georgetown, but that doesn’t nearly tell the story of the series. Once upon a time, Marquette had a 3-2-1 lead in the all-time series, which started back in 2007. Since then, it’s been all Hoyas, and Georgetown has allowed just one goal to Marquette in the last six meetings.

As you can see, this has been a weird season for the Hoyas. The tendency to end up going to a tie with teams has cost them in terms of national rankings. Georgetown started out the year ranked #11 in the country in the United Soccer Coaches top 25, but as recently as last week, they were out of the top 25 entirely. They were actually 2-0-4 at one point this season, so in a way, going 7-0-2 in their last nine matches has them on a bit of a hot streak relatively speaking.

Georgetown comes in on a three match winning streak, and they have not allowed a goal in any of the three contests. They’ve actually only allowed one goal in the past five matches when they let in a 70th minute marker to Providence just about nine minutes after a goal of their own and ultimately went to a draw with the Friars. This is an important match for Georgetown as well, as they are sitting four points back of first place thanks to their two draws. The good news for the Hoyas in the standings is that they have an extra match to play over Xavier and their record of 7-1-0 in the league. GU is going to need some help if they want to win the league title, but they have to take care of their own business — like this match — as well.

While Georgetown has gone to a tie an awful lot this season, that hasn’t slowed down their dominance in the scoring department. They are outscoring teams 28-7 this season, and in Big East action, that margin is 13-3. A lot of that is because they beat Villanova 5-0 last time out, but differential is differential.

Gia Vicari is the primary woman to watch for, as she leads the team in goals with nine. That’s nearly twice as many as #2 on the chart, which is Cyanne Doyle and her five goals this season. Vicari has a gigantic lead in the points department because she also has five assists on the season, and that gives her 23 points in total. Doyle is at just 13, while Maya Fernandez-Powell is in third place with 11 on two goals and a team high seven assists.

All but 30 minutes in goal has gone to Allie Augur for the Hoyas. As you can expect, she’s been outstanding. Her goals-against average is a microscopic 0.44, and she’s doing more than her fair share to get there. Sure, Georgetown is holding teams to merely 7.2 shots per game, but nearly half of those are are on net. Augur has stopped 86% of those this season while making 2.9 saves per game on average.