Marquette Men’s Lacrosse Can’t Close The Deal Against #10 Georgetown

Marquette men’s lacrosse redshirt freshman Devon Cowan scored six — count ‘em, SIX! — goals on Saturday. That wasn’t enough for the Golden Eagles, as #10 Georgetown rallied in the fourth quarter to hand MU a 10-8 loss. Marquette is now 1-7 on the season and 0-6 in Big East action.

Let’s be honest: The game did not start well for Marquette. The Hoyas scored first, and two goals less than 30 seconds apart from all-everything attackman Jake Carraway put the visitors up 3-0 with seven minutes left in the first quarter. Marquette did not even get on the board until the 3:34 mark of the opening period when Cowan started off his absolutely ridiculous day with this goal:

Cowan tacked on a second goal less than a minute later, but Graham Bundy scored the final goal of the first quarter to make it 4-2 Hoyas after 15 minutes. That looks a lot better than that 3-0 start and when you’re playing the #10 team in the country, you’ll take “this is going better now.”

Jake Stegman scored his first goal of the season to open up the scoring in the second quarter. This is one of the two non-Cowan goals of the day for Marquette, and boy, is it neat.

Cowan would wrap up his hat trick with just five seconds left in the half to pull Marquette within one, 5-4, at halftime. It’s a pretty difficult shot, firing behind himself as he runs around from behind the net and at a pretty low angle. I’d love to hear Georgetown goalie Owen McElroy talk about how he attempted to stop this because you can see that it really caught him off guard.

So, 5-4 after 30 minutes. Still improving from that 3-0 deficit to start, and things kept getting better. Marquette doubled up Georgetown in the third quarter, starting with Cowan’s fourth of the day at the 10:40 mark.

The Hoyas answered with goals from Bundy and Dylan Watson to stake themselves to a 7-5 advantage with nine minutes left in the period. Cowan wasn’t anywhere near done, posting goals about 45 seconds apart to knot the game at seven each.

That brings us to the final goal of the third quarter.... and unfortunately, the final goal of the game for the Golden Eagles. Senior Griffin Fleming had the honors, and he gave Marquette their first and as it would turn out only lead of the game with 2:26 to go, and 8-7 favoring the home team would be the margin at the start of the fourth quarter.

And then Georgetown woke up and said “hey, what the hell?” The Hoyas outshot Marquette 11-4 in the fourth quarter. It wasn’t a turnover problem, not really, as Marquette had six to Georgetown’s five. It wasn’t a clearing problem, as MU converted all four attempts they made in the game. It wasn’t a hustle issue, as Georgetown beat Marquette in the ground ball department 4-3. It wasn’t penalties, as Marquette had the only penalty in the entire game whistled against them in the second quarter.

Georgetown just beat Marquette 3-0 in the final 15 minutes because they’re the #10 team in the country and Marquette is not. All four of Marquette’s shots came in the first eight minutes of the quarter. I know I said it wasn’t a turnover problem that cost Marquette the game in the fourth quarter, and you can’t say it was given how many times the Hoyas handed the ball back. But, yeah, Marquette’s final five possessions of the game ended in turnovers, with only one of them, the first one, came as a shot clock violation. It’s not great, but Marquette had chances to do something about it before wandering into the wilderness down the stretch.

Up Next: The final home game of the year is up next, and it might be MU’s best chance in their final four games to record a victory in Big East play this season. St. John’s will come to Milwaukee this coming Wednesday afternoon for a rescheduled game from mid-March. The Red Storm are 1-6 on the season and 0-6 in Big East contests after losing 19-9 on the road against Providence on Saturday.