Marquette Loses At The Last Second To Butler

89 minutes and 12 seconds of scoreless soccer.

One bad second, well, I guess, two bad seconds, and that was that for Marquette women’s soccer on Thursday night. Aliya Diagne booted in a free kick from just outside the 18 years box at the 89:13 mark, Marquette had no chance to push down the field and score an equalizer, and that was that, 1-0 to the visiting Bulldogs.

Here’s the goal:

It is, to be clear, a great goal by Diagne. All credit due to her for putting it in the net in what can be a challenging shooting situation with such limited space.

It was generated by a really unfortunate turn of events. With time winding down, Butler attempted to play the ball into the box. Maddie Monticello…. I don’t know what she did. I suppose she attempted to turn her back into the ball to let it hit a stiffer surface than the front of her torso? In any case, she let her arms spin out away from her body, and the ball made contact with said arms. Handball, yellow card, free kick, just outside the box.

I guess that’s the good news, Marquette at least got to form a wall to defend the shot instead of what would have happened if Monticello was 12 inches further down field, which would have been a penalty kick opportunity for the Bulldogs.

Both teams attempted just six shots all match, and Diagne’s shot was Butler’s only shot on frame in the entire 90 minutes. Marquette managed two shots on goal, one in each half, and BU keeper Emma Martin snared both of them.

[siiiiiiiigh]

In a match with not very much true action in terms of shots, Marquette looked really good against a Butler team that’s been playing really good soccer all season so far. Who knows what would have happened if another 50 seconds had wound away and things went to overtime. Maybe Marquette loses anyway. Maybe that loss doesn’t sting as badly as this one does.

Marquette is now 4-4-0 and 0-1-0 in Big East play, while Butler advances to 8-1-0 overall and they sit in first place in the league at 1-0-0.

Up Next: A jaunt out east. Marquette will be back in action on Sunday afternoon when they visit Villanova. The Wildcats are now 6-3-0 on the year after falling 2-1 to Seton Hall on Thursday afternoon in their Big East opener.