Lydia Foust & Jocelyn Miller Named To The Women’s Lacrosse Preseason All-Big East Team

Preseason All-Big East voting has been tabulated and compiled for women’s lacrosse!

The start of the season is right around the corner with Marquette set to start their ninth season of Division 1 competition this Sunday. With that in mind, the Big East has published the results for the preseason polling of the league’s coaches, and TWO Golden Eagles have been named amongst the 18 women tabbed as the best players in the conference this season.

Senior defender Jocelyn Miller has been named to the Preseason All-Big East team for the second consecutive season, while junior midfielder Lydia Foust makes her first ever appearance in the league’s preseason or postseason awards. Let’s turn it over to the official Marquette press release to talk about the abilities and what have yous for each woman.

First Miller....

A senior from Manorville, N.Y., Miller has been one of Marquette’s top defenders since her freshman year in 2018. She’s started in all 44 games of her career and was named First Team All-BIG EAST after the 2019 season. In her career, she’s picked up 75 ground balls and caused 48 turnovers, which puts her at No. 10 all-time in school history in CT’s. Miller was also named to the 2020 Preseason All-BIG EAST Team, one of three team selections along with Shea Garcia and Madison Kane.

One thing left out there is that Miller only played in six of Marquette’s 10 games a year ago. She was still pretty good in those six games, and that’s why she’s getting this honor now.

And then Foust.....

Foust, a Redwood City, Calif., native, appeared in all 10 games and started in six during her sophomore season in 2020. She enjoyed a breakout campaign in which she led the team in goals (25) while tallying six assists, causing four turnovers and picking up 12 ground balls. After scoring two goals in the first three games, Foust had at least three goals in six of the final seven games of the year.

That writeup on Foust doesn’t mention that she didn’t even start for four of Marquette’s games last season.

As far as the team polling goes, Marquette was picked to finish fifth in the six team Big East this season. The order goes like this: Denver snagged all five available first place votes since coaches can’t vote for their own teams and had 25 points, while Georgetown got Denver’s first place vote and 21 points. Villanova is third at 15 points, new/returning squad Connecticut is fourth with 13, next is MU with 11, and then last is Butler with five points. Five points indicates that the Bulldogs were picked last on each ballot. Marquette’s 11 points indicates that they’re not right above Butler on every ballot, as that would have meant only 10 points. So that’s something.

It’s worth noting that Marquette has never finished worse than their preseason expectation. In each of the last two seasons that were completed, Marquette outperformed their spot in the preseason poll. They were picked in a tie for sixth in 2018 and ended up tied for third, while they were picked third in 2019 and ended up in second place. MU will have to outperform their spot again this year if they want to make it into the four team Big East tournament.

It will be a 10 game league schedule this season in the Big East. Everyone will play each other twice, with both games coming in the same weekend and hosted by the same team. Marquette caught the short end of the stick there with three of their five weekend sets coming away from Milwaukee, but maybe that’s not that big of a deal since there likely won’t be much in the way of fans at any games this season. Marquette does get Denver at home in mid-April when there’s a chance that the games could be moved out of the seasonal bubble and over to the grass field stadium on the west end of Valley Fields. That would definitely make it more likely that MU lets fans attend, but we’ll see what happens when we get there, I guess.

Marquette begins their 2021 campaign with a road game against Cincinnati. First draw is set for 11am on Sunday live from Nippert Stadium, although it appears that the Bearcats will not be streaming the match for some weird reason, not even on ESPN+.

Let’s wrap up with a rundown on the list of awards and all-conference honorees.

Big East Preseason Offensive Player of the Year

Quintin Hoch-Bullen, Denver, Sr., A

Big East Preseason Defensive Player of the Year

Molly Little, Denver, Grad., D

Preseason All-Big East Team

Lia LaPrise, UConn, Jr., A
Sydney Watson, UConn, Sr., M
Bea Behrins, Denver, Sr., A
Quintin Hoch-Bullen, Denver, Sr., A
Hannah Liddy, Denver, Sr., A
Molly Little, Denver, Grad., D
Caroline Weisman, Denver, Sr., M
Eliza Radochonski, Denver, Sr., A
Katie Hudson, Georgetown, Grad., D
Michaela Bruno, Georgetown, Grad., A
Natalia Lynch, Georgetown, Grad., M
Mollie Miller, Georgetown, Sr., D
Lydia Foust, Marquette, Jr., M
Jocelyn Miller, Marquette, Sr., D
Sydney Frank, Villanova, Jr., D
Alexa Moro, Villanova, Jr., GK
Liz Trojan, Villanova, Grad., A
Katie Comerford, Villanova, Grad., A*