Marquette Women’s Soccer Makes The Mistake Of Letting Connecticut Score

As we talked about in the preview of Thursday’s women’s soccer match between Marquette and Connecticut, the Huskies have a notable trend going on this season. Quite simply, when they score goals they win and when they do not score goals, they lose. It’s not a perfect situation, but they have just one goal in their five losses this fall with four shutouts.

So, when Jada Konte scored in the 10th minute for UConn, it was a bad sign for Marquette. That bad sign got driven home twice in the second half when the Huskies tacked on two more goals on their way to a 3-0 victory over the Golden Eagles. Marquette is now 7-5-0 overall this season and 3-2-0 in Big East play, and their three match winning streak in league action has come to an end.

Konte’s goal in the early going qualifies as a bit of misfortune for MU keeper Mikki Easter. She made the original save on a left side shot by Lucy Cappadona, but because it was a close range powerful shot, all Easter could do was parry the ball away. “Away” in this case was out towards the middle of the park, and that’s where Konte was waiting to smash it home.

The real tragedy of the loss is that I liked how Marquette responded to Konte’s goal. It felt like Marquette was pushing the situation for the rest of the first half, even though the Huskies ended up leading 9-6 in shots after 45 minutes. Marquette had some quality chances as things proceeded, but nothing that ever went into the net.

1-0 was the lead at the intermission, but that did not last long. Less than six minutes into the second half, Jaydah Bedoya moved the ball out to the middle, then turned and fired it past Easter for a 2-0 lead. That’s two goals in a game, and UConn had never not scored two goals and lost this season. Definitely bad news for the Golden Eagles there.

The third goal of the match came in the 72nd minute. Joyce Ryder rifled a shot within reaching distance for Easter, but she only got gloves on it, not a full grip. It slipped through her hands thanks to the incoming velocity and into the net for what would turn into the final goal of the game.

Not what you want, of course.

Up Next: Another road game out on the east coast. On Sunday afternoon, Marquette will be 50 miles to the east to take on Providence. The Friars are 2-1-1 in the Big East after beating Villanova 1-0 on Thursday afternoon. Weirdly, as long as Marquette stayed out on the East Coast between matches, MU will be the less traveled team on Sunday.