Still Winless: Seton Hall 3, Marquette 2

This is not going well.

We have reached the halfway point of the Big East schedule for Marquette men’s soccer, and the Golden Eagles are still without a single victory. After Wednesday night’s 3-2 loss to unbeaten and first place Seton Hall, MU is now 0-3-2 in league action with just five matches left to go.

And it seemed like it was going so well.

Almost right off the top, Edrey Caceres gave Marquette a 1-0 lead. Quality persistent attacking by Marquette, as Beto Soto crossed it in and Lukas Sunesson connected with it, but his shot was broken up. Mitar Mitrovic was on top of things though, and a quick push back to Caceres for the open shot in the box led to it rocketing into the net.

That held for a while, and it seemed like Marquette was holding control of play in the match. But the Pirates got free down the right side, and that turned into a very nice cross and a near-perfect header for the equalizer from Matthias Almeida Sundell in the 28th minute.

That score lasted til halftime, as did my attendance at the match. The predicted 20% chance of drizzle came through, but it brought a breeze with it too, and the last thing I really want to do is sit in 50 degree weather in a breeze and get every so slightly increasingly wet. Sorry, lads.

That means I missed Seton Hall making it 2-1 in the 55th minute as I drove home.

And I just barely missed Beto Soto’s equalizer in the 64th minute before I could get FloSports fired up at home.

What a lovely goal.

So, 64 minutes gone, that leaves 26 minutes to play. Can Marquette find a winner, or can they hold on for their third draw of the season?

10 minutes later, we found out that the answer was no, and it was a very not fun version of no. Quenzi Huerman gathered up possession in Marquette’s offensive half and realized that he had lots of space, just like there was lots of space between MU keeper Ludvig Malberg and his net. Loooooooong shot, 3-2 lead in the 74th minute.

As you would expect, Marquette controlled the attack and the possession for the remainder of the match since they were the team that needed the winner. Six shots in the final 15 minutes, three of which had to be saved by SHU keeper Hannes Ronnholmen, plus three corner kicks. Nothing doing. MU had one final chance to score in the 90th minute, in fact with the clock stopped showing exactly 89:00 played. The Golden Eagles lined up for a free kick just to the left of center of the field, and Caceres bent the shot around the wall in front of him just perfectly. That bend sent the ball just wide left of the net, though, and that was that.

Those final six shots of the game helped the Golden Eagles to a 12-5 shots advantage in the second half and a 19-8 advantage in the match. Ronnholmen had to make seven saves in the match to get his team the victory, so like I said up at the very top of the page, not much to complain about the quality of the play. The result, though, is not good.

Up Next: Marquette will start off their final five matches of the season on Saturday evening when UConn comes to town. The Huskies are sitting at 1-3-1 in Big East action right now and moved to 4-6-1 after needing two second half goals from Okem Chime to rally to get a 2-1 win over Maine at Fort Kent, which isn’t even an NAIA school.