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Marquette women’s lacrosse is 5-9 on the year and just 2-6 in Big East play.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that the Golden Eagles are still alive for one of the four Big East tournament spots. Villanova is in fourth place in the league at 4-4, while Marquette’s record has them in fifth place. It is possible for the Golden Eagles to end up in a tie with the Wildcats in the standings AND by way of other tiebreakers, MU could end up scooting past Villanova for that fourth and final spot. I don’t know what these tiebreakers are, but I will take the official Marquette preview’s word for it that they exist. to keep Meredith Black’s team alive at the moment.
It’s a better situation than you realize. As luck would have it, Marquette will be playing the worst team in the league this weekend, while Villanova will be playing the best team in the league. Butler (we’ll get to their problems in a minute) will be looking to avoid going 0-10 in Big East play while Denver, VU’s opponent, will be trying to finish the year out at 10-0 after sweeping Marquette last weekend. It’s just luck of the draw, but it’s working out in Marquette’s favor here after everyone else in the league got two chances to pound all over Butler already this season.
Marquette has to take advantage of their opportunity, though. MU might be a little bit closer to pulling this off if they had managed to shut the door against Denver back on Sunday afternoon instead of losing in overtime. What if MU had pulled off the win in their Big East opener instead of falling 14-13 to Connecticut? What if they had swept Villanova instead of losing 18-13 in the first meeting? The Golden Eagles had opportunities already this year to be in a better position than they find themselves now, but they failed to lock them down. The universe has seen fit to give them one final chance, and they have to do their part to wrap it up right.
Big East Game #9: at Butler Bulldogs (1-9, 0-8 Big East)
Date: Friday, April 23, 2021
Time: 2pm Central
Location: Varsity Field, Indianapolis, IN
Streaming: Butler’s YouTube channel
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWLax
Big East Game #9: at Butler Bulldogs (1-9, 0-8 Big East)
Date: Sunday, April 25, 2021
Time: 11am Central
Location: Varsity Field, Indianapolis, IN
Streaming: Butler’s YouTube channel
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWLax
Marquette is 3-0 all time against Butler. The Golden Eagles and the Bulldogs have faced off in Big East play in all three contests, and Marquette has allowed a total of eight goals while winning by double digit margins in all three meetings.
This is Year 5 of Butler’s women’s lacrosse program, and, well, it’s not going particularly great. You can see up top that BU has won just one game so far this season, and that one was a 12-9 home game against Denison. That’s Division 3 Denison for those of you playing along at home, and I feel we should point out that Butler was up 12-6 with seven minutes left. Other than that game, though, Butler is getting outscored 163-64 on the season. That’s 18-7 on average. They have lost seven of their Big East games so far this season by double digits.
Like I said, not particularly great.
The Bulldogs do have a pair of goal-per-game scorers in KK Callaghan and Lindsey Schreiber. They are at exactly one goal per game with 10 goals in BU’s 10 games. Callaghan has two of Butler’s 26 assists on the year, while Schreiber has one. Greer Bireley and Leah Rubino are leading the Butler passing game with four assists each this season.
Amanda Rumsey has been the starter in net for most of Butler’s games this season. She has not finished any of BU’s games, although she came on in relief in the three games that she did not start. Katie McGrath has appeared in all 10 games as well, but with only two starts. However, McGrath has actually played 20 more minutes than Rumsey this season, which is a neat twist on things. Both women have a goals-against average north of 15 per 60 minutes (Rumsey is north of 19, if you can believe it) and both women have a save percentage under 40%. As you can see, things are generally favoring the Golden Eagles here.