Marquette Women’s Lacrosse Preview: at Louisville

Would you like to take a peek behind the ol’ curtain here at Anonymous Eagle? The plan for this preview was to cover both of the games that Marquette women’s lacrosse is going to play this weekend. But two things jammed up the works.

First, there’s the fact that Friday’s game is an 11am start. Generally speaking, I like to publish things the day before when there’s morning starts, so that means a Thursday publish for a weekend preview. Fine, no big deal. However, wrench #2 comes in the form of Sunday’s opponent playing a game on Wednesday afternoon.

That game is going to be wrapping up riiiiiight about when I’m going to start getting ready to leave for the Marquette men’s basketball game on Wednesday night. Go to game, watch game, come home from game, write recap, go to bed. Time to dig around in the stats for Sunday’s opponent and write anything resembling a preview so it can go up during the day on Thursday? Noooooooope. Maybe I’ll get to it by the time I go to bed on Thursday, but then we’re just getting closer and closer and closer to Friday’s start.

Not great.

So, we’re previewing Friday’s game now, which is actually Wednesday afternoon as I type this and sometime Thursday when you’re reading this, maybe even Friday morning. After Friday’s game, there will be a recap and on the back half of that, a preview of Sunday’s game.

As for actual lacrosse insight? Well, I don’t know if there is any actual insight to make yet. Marquette beat Cincinnati in their opener, which was neat. Then they half got smashed by and half ran with #5 Northwestern in game #2 of the year. I don’t think there’s anything notable to take away from the NU game other than “the Wildcats are clearly much better than Marquette,” but that was the takeaway from the other times those two teams have met in the past. Marquette has also generally been able to beat Cincinnati when those two teams play, so I’m not sure there’s a big takeaway there, either.

About the only thing I’m curious about so far is Kyra LaMotte. The grad transfer was a scoring machine for Furman last season, recording more goals for the Paladins than any Golden Eagle has ever scored in a single season. She has started both contests for head coach Meredith Black and has scored twice in both. However, she’s second on the team in shots with 10, trailing only Lydia Foust, but only fifth in points. Part of that has to do with Mary Schumar turning into a goal delivery service with four assists against Northwestern, but we have to at least call it a slow start for LaMotte. If Marquette is just deploying her as part of the offensive package as opposed to the primary function of the offense, then she’s going to be just another weapon for the Golden Eagles. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

Game #3: at Louisville Cardinals (0-2)

Date: Friday, February 18, 2022
Time: 11am Central
Location: U of L Lacrosse Stadium, Louisville, Kentucky
Streaming: ACC Network Extra
Live Stats: I mean, in theory, yeah. Check GoCards.com to see if they put something up. Last year they used Sidearm Stats.
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWLax

Marquette is 1-9 all time against Louisville. The Cardinals have won the last two meetings between the two squads, with the most recent matchup coming in March 2021 at Valley Fields.

It was a rough start to the season for Louisville as they went out to the Rocky Mountains and took two losses. They ended up falling in overtime to Colorado in their opener, which was a weird game all the way around. It was 3-2 Cards after the first quarter, but the game was moved indoors after that point because they started this thing in a damn blizzard. Check out these highlights from the Buffaloes:

UL rallied from down 12-9 late in the third quarter to tie it first at 12 with 2:19 to go and then against at 13 with just 45 seconds left before the Buffs scored with one second remaining in the overtime period. That stinks.

Game #2 was a bit more straight forward for Louisville. #14 Denver scored six times in the first seven minutes on their way to a 10-2 lead at the end of the first quarter and a 19-9 loss for the Cardinals. This accidentally makes Louisville an interesting measuring stick for Marquette, as Denver is the preseason favorite to win the Big East.

Speaking of preseason conference polls, Louisville was picked to finish seventh in the nine team ACC this season. That’s a little bit worse than it sounds, as Pitt is in their first season as a Division 1 program this year. It’s also a little bit better than it sounds, as six of the ACC’s teams — all six in front of Louisville to be specific — started off the year in the Inside Lacrosse/IWLCA top 25. It’s not fun to be picked third from the bottom, and second to last amongst established programs, but on the other hand, the ACC coaches said “there’s six programs in the top 25 nationally, and then there’s you,” and that’s not really an insult.

Caroline Blalock was UL’s only representative on the preseason All-ACC team, and to drive home exactly how big of a deal that is, Blalock is also an Inside Lacrosse Preseason All-American. I don’t want to say scoring two goals in both of your first two games of the year is a “slow start,” but it does leave Blalock third on the team so far this season. She does lead the team in ground balls so far with five, so that’s something.

Canadian junior Nicole Perroni is leading the UL attack so far this season with seven goals, five of which came against Colorado. Hannah Morris, a 5’5” attacker from Ontario, has six markers on the year, with four of those coming against the Buffaloes as well. Louisville only has five assists on 22 goals to this point of the campaign, but Madi McKee has two of them. That seems worth keeping an eye on.

Sara Addeche has started both of Louisville’s games this season, but that’s not necessarily going to guarantee her a spot in the net against the Golden Eagles. The 5’2” sophomore was pulled after just 5:25 worth of Denver throwing goals past her back on Sunday and freshman J Pleck (not a typo, that’s how she’s listed on the roster) made her collegiate debut in relief. Addeche stopped 33% of shots on goal against the Buffaloes, while Pleck got at least a piece of 42% of the shots that Denver fired at her in just over 54 minutes worth of action.