Marquette Escapes From New York With A Draw

Whew, that was close.

Elsi Twombly put enough of a strike onto a loose corner kick in the box in the 84th minute of Marquette women’s soccer’s visit to New York, and as a result, the Golden Eagles get to leave with a 1-1 draw with St. John’s. MU is now 3-4-2 in Big East play, which has them in a tie for sixth place with UConn at 11 points.

It definitely did not look like things were trending towards Marquette coming out of Queens with points much less the one point that they did get on Sunday afternoon. This was not a super fun time match, with both sides heading to halftime with just two shots attempted each. By the end, Marquette would have a 10-6 advantage in the shots department as both teams mucked the game up in the eyes of the referee. If you like fouls, this was the match for you, as the ref blew his whistle 22 times against St. John’s and another 17 against the Golden Eagles.

Only one of those four first half shots were on frame, and that one belonged to St. John’s as Nicole Gordon put it past MU keeper Chloe Olson in the 22nd minute. Gordon got loose and unattended up the left sideline, and after taking in a pass that was launched from midfield, she turned it inwards, dodged one defender and popped off a low angle shot from close in on Olson as a second defender arrived. 1-0.

I’m going to put in the SJU tweet of the goal, but this very badly clipped sideline view does not give you a proper idea of how badly MU defended Gordon here.

As you can tell from the discussion of shot totals in the match, it was a struggle by Marquette to get something resembling a chance at an equalizer. They did manage five corner kicks in the second half, and it was St. John’s defending the fourth one out over the end line to create the fifth and final one that finally did the trick for the Golden Eagles in the 84th minute.

It’s really a heck of a play by Twombly to figure out how to get a clean propulsive kick on the ball. She would actually get one more chance at the net with just under three minutes to go, but her strike wasn’t quite as clean and SJU keeper Gina Muzi easily fielded the match’s final shot to let it go to a draw.

Up Next: One final match this season for Marquette, and their shot at the Big East tournament is on the line. Coming up on Thursday, Xavier Musketeers will visit Valley Fields on Senior Night. Marquette will need need either a win or a draw against the Musketeers to get into the Big East tournament. Depending on their result, they’ll need some variation of help from Seton Hall (vs UConn) as well as Villanova and Providence, who are playing each other, which is not helpful for the Golden Eagles.

Oh, it’s probably a good time to mention that Xavier is 6-0-3 in Big East play after beating Creighton 2-1 on Sunday. Oh, and the Bluejays’ goal was the first that XU allowed in their last seven matches.