Making It Official: Marquette 66, Creighton 53

Marquette’s biggest enemy on Monday afternoon in Omaha was Camryn Taylor and her foul count.

The sophomore forward played just 37 seconds in the first quarter of MU’s game against Creighton before committing her first foul of the game and getting subbed out for the remainder of the period, and Marquette led 10-8 at the end of 10 minutes.

Taylor played 24 of the remaining 30 minutes, scoring a game high 27 points on 12-for-14 shooting as the Golden Eagles outscored the Bluejays 56-45 over the final 30 minutes and easily coasted to a 66-53 victory. Marquette is now 11-2 overall on the season and 8-1 in Big East play, which leaves them alone in second place behind only 9-0 Connecticut.

I’m not even kidding about the Taylor thing. Creighton scored the first two buckets of the second quarter to take a 12-10 lead. Taylor scored the next eight points for the Golden Eagles, and the margin was 18-14 MU after her fourth straight bucket.

It was a three-point game at the half, 26-23 favoring Marquette, and surprise surprise, Taylor broke the ice on the second half to make it a five point game. Later in the third, Taylor went on a tear again, scoring nine straight points for the Golden Eagles. By the end of that stretch, Marquette was up 41-29. Creighton couldn’t do a damn thing about her. Taylor repeatedly squared up from 10 feet in the mid-post area and just tossed in contested jumpers over Mykel Parham like it was nothing.

The Bluejays would bite into that lead, though. A jumper from Emma Ronsiek with 1:55 to go in the third made it a seven point game, 45-38. MU scored the final six points of the period though, with Taylor sandwiching two baskets around a Selena Lott transition layup to make it 54-38 with 10 minutes left.

Marquette held Creighton without a point for more than three minutes into the fourth quarter and tacked on four more points of their own to make it a 20 point lead. That’s when Marquette’s offense finally hit a hiccup and couldn’t put anything together for a long stretch. Creighton scored 11 straight points to get within single digits and things might have been starting to teeter a bit. It was one of those “this is getting interesting as long as Marquette can’t put the ball in the basket” runs. Lott’s only three-pointer of the game came with 1:48 to go to break the Bluejay run, and pretty much put a dagger in the whole thing.

As mentioned, Taylor topped the charts in points for both squads on this day. No other Golden Eagle even got into double digits, while the Bluejays had Emma Ronsiek scoring 16 and Molly Mogensen adding 13 on their end. Lott tied with Lauren Van Kleunen for the team high in rebounds with eight, and Lott was tied with Jordan King as tops in assists with five.

How about some highlights, courtesy of FloHoops and GoMarquette.com?

Up Next: This is The Week Of Four Games, so it’s a quick turnaround for the Golden Eagles before facing Georgetown in D.C. on Wednesday. The Hoyas are 1-7 on the year and 1-7 in Big East play as well after losing by eight in Omaha to the Bluejays this past Saturday in their most recent game. MU beat Georgetown by 32 in Milwaukee back on January 20th.