When you’re facing off against a top 15 team and you yourself are not ranked in the top 25, you kind of have to not make any mistakes if you want to get the win, even at home.
That wasn’t the case with Marquette men’s soccer on Thursday night as they started off the season against #11 Tulsa. The final margin was 4-2 favoring the ranked visitors at Valley Fields, but even with Tulsa only winning the shots battle 18-16, Marquette kind of handed the Golden Hurricane the game.
How else are we supposed to talk about an own goal skittering past freshman netminder Ludwig Malberg in his first ever appearance and start in the 30th minute to give the game its first goal? 1-0 Hurricane, and they made it 2-0 just under four minutes later.
That stayed that way thru halftime, and the visitors tacked on what would turn into the game winning goal in the 54th minute. 3-0 with nearly an hour gone, which is not great, and made worse by the own goal.
Marquette finally broke through in the 65th minute, but the Golden Eagles didn’t do it by particularly fancy footwork. No, it was a foul at the top of the box that led to Lukas Sunesson roofing a penalty kick to make it 3-1.
65' | MU - 1 | TU - 3 | Lukas Sunesson scores on the PK! #WeAreMarquette pic.twitter.com/lWgQ1WdEXW
— Marquette Soccer (@marquettesoccer) August 25, 2022
MU went nearly 13 minutes without a shot following that, which is kind of bad since you kind of need to put goals up in a hurry in this kind of situation. Tulsa put one more past Malberg in the 84th minute to make it academic, but the Golden Eagles did scoot one past TU keeper Alex Lopez in the final minute of the game to give us our final score.
90' | MU - 2 | TU - 4 | Edrey Caceres finds the back of the net - assisted by Abdoul Karim Pare!#WeAreMarquette pic.twitter.com/y1DdK2Zky6
— Marquette Soccer (@marquettesoccer) August 26, 2022
The combo play from Abdoul Karim Pare to Edrey Caceres ended up being the first legitimate run of play goal by either Marquette soccer team this season, and considering that it took nearly three full matches in order to get us there….. yeah, that’s not exactly burgeoning us with optimism, is it?
FUN FACT: I’m typing this during halftime of the women’s game on Thursday night, and they’re currently down 1-0 to Milwaukee, thus extending their streak of a lack of run of play scoring.
Anyway, it’s Match #1 of the year, and it’s against the toughest opponent Marquette is going to play before Big East action starts. Learning experience, etc., etc., and we’ll see what happens next time out…..
Up Next: …. Which is coming up on Sunday afternoon against Utah Tech. First kick on that game will be at 2:05 pm Central time. The Trailblazers are trailing 3-0 at halftime against Wisconsin in their season opener as I write this.
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