Marquette Women’s Lacrosse Comes Up Short Against Central Michigan

A lopsided second half spelled doom for Marquette women’s lacrosse on Sunday afternoon in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. A 6-5 halftime lead quickly turned into an 8-6 deficit against Central Michigan, and the Golden Eagles weren’t able to create enough chances down the stretch as they took an 11-10 loss to the Chippewas. The Golden Eagles are now 0-2 on the season, with both losses coming by just one goal.

While Marquette led 6-4 late in the first half, there were already problems looming for the Golden Eagles. MU looked like they could score at will against Central Michigan’s defense, but MU’s own defense wasn’t giving them the chances to do that. CMU outshot the Golden Eagles 21-11 in the first half, which tells you an awful lot about how possession went in the opening 30 minutes. If that wasn’t enough, Megan Menzuber picked up her second yellow card of the day with 6:44 to play in the first half. Two yellow cards means you’re done for the day, and considering that Menzuber came into the game as one of the 10 best scorers in MU lacrosse history, that’s a pretty big loss for the Golden Eagles. We can have a very long conversation about the fact that Menzuber’s second yellow was issued for a dangerous follow-through on a shot, something that wouldn’t exist if we just put helmets on the players if you want to, but maybe we’ll just leave that for another time.

Anyway, Marquette was leading at the half, even though the Chippewas were firing away without hesitation against goalie Sophia Leva. The Golden Eagles fixed the shots thing in the second half, but the accuracy by CMU got a lot better. MU allowed just eight shots by Central Michigan for the entire second half..... but six of those went in the net past super senior goalie Jules Horning. Four of them were in the first seven minutes of the second stanza, and Maggie Diebold’s goal with 22:24 to go had CMU up 8-6.

Marquette answered with two goals from Shea Garcia less than 90 seconds apart to knot the game at eight, but the Chippewas weren’t done. They would score three times over the next nine minutes, holding MU without a goal as Central Michigan staked themselves to an 11-8 lead with 12:23 to go.

That’s not a big lead, not in lacrosse, and that’s an awful lot of time left.

But Marquette frittered it away. Leigh Steiner notched Marquette’s ninth goal of the match with 7:03 to go, and Lydia Foust made it 11-10 with 3:07 to go. That’s nine of the remaining 12 minutes gone at that point, and MU still needed to get a goal to tie and another to win.

Time just slipped away from them at the end. Garcia ate a yellow card, which didn’t help, but Jocelyn Miller forced a turnover and snagged the ground ball with 2:03 to go...... and then Audrey Brett stepped out of bounds with 96 seconds left. CMU ball, reset the shot clock to 90 seconds, and that was pretty much it for Marquette.

Foust had a hat trick to lead the way for Marquette on the day, while Garcia and Caroline Steller both added two goals each. Five different Golden Eagles tied for the team lead in ground balls with two each, and Steller topped the charts in the caused turnover department with two.

Up Next: Well, I thought I was about to tell you that a road game against Kent State on Sunday was on deck, but uh, we have a game to announce, it seems. According to the official Marquette schedule page, the Golden Eagles will be hosting Oregon on Friday night. First draw is set for 7:30pm Central time at Valley Fields. The Ducks are 0-2 on the year with road losses to San Diego State and UC Davis already. From looking at their schedule, it seems that they were supposed to visit Notre Dame on Friday, and I presume that the Irish had to back out of the game due to the same COVID pause that sent Marquette to Central Michigan.