Marquette Men’s Lacrosse Comes Up Short Against Drexel

Ugh, this stinks.

After a wild first quarter that featured 10 combined goals between the two teams, Marquette men’s lacrosse and Drexel combined for just 11 more goals the rest of the way. Unfortunately for the Golden Eagles, seven of those went for the Dragons, including Max Semple’s marker with 3:18 left to go in double overtime. That means Drexel heads back to Philadelphia with the 11-10 extra time victory, and Marquette falls to 2-4 on the season.

Marquette finished up the first quarter with three straight goals, including a man-up strike from freshman sensation Bobby O’Grady, and that had the Golden Eagles up 6-4 after 15 minutes. O’Grady wrapped up his hat trick on the day on the first goal of the second quarter, and that had MU out in front 7-4. Drexel pulled two goals back, although not until MU held them without a goal for more than 14 minutes in total, and a Chris Kirschner goal with 78 seconds left in the half sent the Golden Eagles to the locker room up 8-6.

Not bad, and Will Foster’s goal with 10:42 left to go in the third put MU back up three goals again. Aiden Coll and Kirschner traded markers, and it was 10-7 Marquette with 6:13 left in the period.

As you can tell already, Marquette would not score again.

Jack Mulcahy and then Semple again with 35 seconds to go made it 10-9 Golden Eagles heading to the fourth quarter.

MU started the period killing off their only penalty of the game, an unnecessary roughness call against Mason Woodward in the closing seconds of the third period, and considering that the hit that caused it came behind the Drexel net, on the opposite end of the field from where you would expect Woodward to be at all, it was very much unnecessary. Still, MU killed it off, forcing Drexel into a shot clock violation.

For a while, turnovers were the name of the game in the quarter. Just one shot by either side in the first three minutes. MU had a solid chance to score, and then the turnover bug took over again. Finally, Drexel’s Max Semple — yes, him again — got a goal to go cutting into the middle with the shot clock fading with less than five minutes to play. Tie game.

A few more turnovers and a save by MU’s Michael Allieri with just seconds remaining sent the thing to sudden victory extra time. MU won the opening faceoff, continuing their overall domination on draws all game long, but even though they got two shots off, none got to the cage and they took a shot clock violation. Drexel failed their clearance, and Logan Kreinz’s shot was saved by Drexel’s Drew McGill. Drexel coughed it back up again, giving Marquette a little less than a minute to go in their offensive end to get a win..... but time just slipped away from them and their final possession of the extra session officially ended with a turnover.

Four more minutes on the clock. MU won the faceoff again, giving Thomas Washington 13 wins in 16 tries in this game. After a timeout, MU’s lone attempt of the second OT ended up going to Griffin Fries on a cross field feed from Kirschner, but McGill came up with the stop. That sent it the other way in a hurry, and you guessed it, Max Semple fired in the game winner. Marquette very nearly broke up the play on a diving stick check from behind from Fries, but the lucky swing of physics sent the ball flying directly to Semple, and he makes a relatively easy play low and past Allieri for the win.

10-7 Marquette late in the third..... 11-10 Drexel at the end. That stings.

O’Grady added an assist to his hat trick to finish with a team high four points, but that wasn’t enough to overcome the five goal day from Semple. Will Foster and Chris Kirschner both had two goals on the afternoon as MU’s only other multi-point guys. Washington won seven of those faceoffs to himself to lead in ground balls, and Luke Williams snagged up all six of his draws as well. Logan Kreinz was tops amongst field players in ground balls with five, and they were readily available with the two sides combining for 41 turnovers in the game. Kreinz, Jacob Hallam, and Anthony Courcelle all combined to generate two turnovers each for the Golden Eagles.

He ends up with the loss on the day, but Michael Allieri was actually great for Marquette. 12 saves means he was over .500 on save percentage on the afternoon, and he made six of those stops in the third quarter alone to give the Golden Eagles every possible chance to build and hold their lead.

Up Next: As per usual, Marquette will be off until next Saturday, when they’ll be back out on the road. Saturday morning means a showdown with Robert Morris out in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. First draw is set for 11am Central time. The Colonials are 2-4 on the year after losing 13-11 to High Point at home back on Friday.