Marquette Men’s Lacrosse Gets Clipped by Air Force

Well, not much to say about this one.

Marquette men’s lacrosse started off the game with the first goal, but then surrendered an 8-1 run bridging into the second quarter to fall behind 8-2 with 7:52 to go before halftime. That was pretty much it for this one. By the end, it was Air Force 16, Marquette 9, and the Golden Eagles drop to 2-6 on the year.

I guess, technically, it wasn’t really over after 22 minutes of action. Marquette did cut it back to just a five goal margin at halftime, 9-4, and Bobby O’Grady’s goal with 71 seconds left before intermission turned out to be the first of a 4-0 run by the Golden Eagles. Luke Blanc scored twice in the first nine minutes of the third quarter, including the second one coming in a man-up situation, and that turned it into a 9-7 ballgame with over 20 minutes left to go. Lacrosse is a weird sport sometimes, and somewhat thanks to the faceoff situation, you can just catch fire and flip a game.

That is not what happened, though. Air Force answered Blanc’s second goal with three straight before the third quarter wrapped up to make it 12-7 with 15 minutes left and then they held Marquette without a goal for the first 10 minutes of the fourth. Along the way, they added three more goals of their own, ta-da 15-7.

To a certain extent, this was just a “shots went in for the Falcons” game. Marquette ended up outshooting Air Force, 40-39, and shots on goal were relatively even, 26 for the Falcons and 24 for Marquette. After not making a stop in the first quarter, Michael Allieri got it together for MU and made 10 stops in the final 45 minutes of the game. It’s hard to say any of this is really his fault, and with MU’s offense getting shots on frame over and over, we have to credit Falcons goalie Jason Rose for making the stops to alter the game in favor of his team.

Blanc was MU’s only multi-goal scorer in the game, and he finished with a hat trick. O’Grady, Jake Stegman, and Will Foster all added two assists to their singular goal to match Blanc for the team high in points. Mason Woodward was a terror on the defensive end, snagging a game high seven ground balls and causing three turnovers. Luke Williams went 14-for-23 on draws in the game, but the Golden Eagles couldn’t turn that 61% winning rate into goals on the regular.

How about some highlights, such as they are, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and MUTV?

Up Next: In the words of the legendary Jim Ross, business is about to pick up. Next week Saturday, Marquette will start off Big East play with a home date against Providence. First draw at Valley Fields is set for 11am Central, and FloSports will handle the streaming options. The Friars are 5-4 on the year after beating Hofstra at home in overtime on Saturday.