Marquette Women’s Lacrosse Splits A Weekend With Georgetown

I think we’re proving pretty quickly that it’s hard to beat a team twice in one weekend. That’s what has happened to Marquette women’s lacrosse each of the past two game weekends, as they returned from Washington, D.C., after splitting a pair of games against Georgetown. The Golden Eagles took the win in Friday’s contest, downing the Hoyas 15-9 and giving MU back-to-back wins for the first time in over a month, while the home team beat Marquette 20-10 in Sunday’s rematch. The Golden Eagles are now 5-7 overall this season and 2-4 in Big East play with four contests left to go.

Friday’s 15-9 victory over Georgetown was Marquette’s first ever road win over the Hoyas and just the second win for the Golden Eagles in the all-time series. It certainly didn’t start out looking like Marquette was going to win the game as a goal from Ali Diamond with 10:08 left in the first half put Georgetown up 7-3. But Marquette scored the next four goals of the game, and a marker with five seconds left in the first half from Hannah Greving on a fantastic “stick with the play” effort made it 8-all at halftime.

Georgetown’s Natalia Lynch scored the first goal of the second half, beating MU’s Sophia Leva less than 90 seconds in to put Georgetown up 9-8...... and that would be the last time that the Hoyas scored in the game. In fact, that would almost be the only goal in the first 15 minutes of the second half. The next goal of the game came with 15:34 to play, and it came from Megan Menzuber after a yellow card on Mollie Miller.

That woman-up goal from Menzuber light a fire under the grad student, it appears. Menzuber scored the next two goals of the game, staking Marquette to an 11-9 lead with 12:55 to play.

Then it was Lydia Foust’s turn to shine. The junior from California notched the next two goals of the game to finish up her hat trick on the day and put Marquette up 13-9 with 7:42 to play. You’d think at that point that MU might get a little bit conservative and try to just make sure they held on to win.

Nope!

Menzuber scored again at the 6:22 mark to make it a five point game, and she scored her sixth goal of the game with just over 90 seconds to go to provide the final 15-9 margin. Five of Menzuber’s six came in the second half as Marquette just hopped on her back and went zipping away from the Hoyas in the final 15 minutes of the game.

We have to tip our caps to Sophia Leva, who made 15 saves in the game to help propel Marquette to victory. 11 of those came in the first half as Leva fought and fought to make sure that the Golden Eagles didn’t fall into a bigger hole early and then had a chance to get it tied at halftime.

Lindsey Hill had her first career hat trick in the game, joining Foust and Menzuber in that department, and the senior from New York added two assists for a five point day.

How about a full highlight reel, courtesy of GUHoyas.com and GoMarquette.com?

That was Friday, though, and Sunday was different. The two teams traded goals back and forth for the first 14 minutes, with Caroline Steller’s second goal of the game pulling Marquette even at 4-4. MU lost containment of the Hoyas after that, letting three straight i and five of the next six goals of the game. Shea Garcia and Steller clawed two back in quick fashion late in the half, just 38 seconds apart, and it was 9-7 Georgetown at the break.

That’s not too bad.

Georgetown scoring the first four of the second half was bad. A woman-up goal from Steller and a goal from Garcia with 17:15 to play made it a 13-9 ballgame and MU was in shouting distance..... right up until MU didn’t score again for another 10 minutes. By then, Georgetown had taken an 18-9 lead and Megan Menzuber’s free position goal — her only one of the game after six on Friday — made it 18-10 with 7:16 left. At that point, Marquette just didn’t have the time to do anything about it, and two turnovers down the stretch certainly didn’t help.

Marquette got a big day from Steller here as she went for five goals as the Hoyas figured out how to shut down Menzuber. Steller scored five goals on 10 shots, while Menzuber only had three shots all game long after hanging six on Georgetown 48 hours earlier. Shea Garcia was the only other Golden Eagle to score more than once in the game, and with only one assist from Madison Kane, Steller and Garcia were the only MU players to tally more than one point on Sunday.

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

Up Next: Well, it won’t be a picnic, that’s for sure. Marquette will close out the home section of their schedule this coming weekend when first place Denver comes to town. The Pioneers are 8-1 overall and a perfect 6-0 in Big East action at the moment. Friday’s game against Denver will start at 3pm Central time at Valley Fields, while Sunday’s contest is set to start at 1pm Central. Both games will be streamed on GoMarquette.com.