All Of The Penalty Kicks: Yale 3, Marquette 2

Finally something worked out for a group of men from Yale.

Four penalty kicks scattered around the second half were the difference in the ballgame on Saturday night at Valley Fields as Yale prevailed over Marquette, 3-2. The Golden Eagles are now 3-3-0 on the year while the Bulldogs remain unbeaten at 3-0-2.

You can’t necessarily say that the referee’s calls dictated the terms of the game or the result of it, as Yale scored first and they scored early. Sigfus Arnason tallied the only run of play goal of the match in the 7th minute. It was a nice goal, generated off a throw in deep in their offensive third, and for a second, it looked like Marquette was going to be able to clear the ball away, but the clearance went straight to Arnason’s foot for him to pop it past keeper Chandler Hallwood.

Shots were 6-4 favoring Yale at intermission as the visitors held onto their 1-0 lead. The first penalty kick of the game came in the 47th minute as Yale committed a handball on a cross back into the middle on a deep ball on the left hand side of the net. MU forward Lukas Sunesson calmly deposited the ball in the net, and everything was knotted at one goal each.

That margin held til the 58th minute when a scramble for the ball on the right side of Hallwood’s net turned into, in the referee’s eyes, a trip from behind right as the ball entered the 18 yard box. Kahveh Zahiroleslam did the honors for Yale, putting it past Hallwood who correctly judged the shot going to his right.

Along to the 80th minute we go, where Brooklyn Merl got tripped in the box, and this one was more of a “denial of a scoring opportunity” type of trip than a “blatantly from behind” type of trip. Sunesson stepped up again, and it was tied at two goals each.

At this point, I think Marquette would have been happy with the draw. Three penalty kicks in 35 minutes is a wild way to go, and there was just under 11 minutes left to play.

That’s not how it went.

Off a corner kick by the Bulldogs in the 85th minute, Paolo Carroll cracked a shot off the crossbar as Hallwood leapt forward to try to play it away from his net. He ended up on the ground from that, and as the camera pans away to follow the ball, you can see that 1) there’s a Yale player at least in Hallwood’s immediate vicinity on the ground, and 2) Hallwood definitely swings at least one arm downwards in a forceful motion. I presume what happened is the referee judged Hallwood to be taking a swing at the Yale player on the ground near him instead of merely scrambling back to his feet to defend his net, and that’s where the red card to immediately dismiss him from the match came in.

That brought Ludvig Malberg off the bench to defend a penalty kick by Carroll as Marquette went down to 10 men for the remainder.

And Malberg put a hand on it...... but it did go in to make it 3-2.

Marquette generated one final shot of the match after that, but Edrey Caceres’ shot was saved by Yale keeper Elian Haddock.

Up Next: For everyone except for Chandler Hallwood, it’ll be Tuesday night’s renewal of The Milwaukee Cup. Milwaukee will make their way over from the East Side of town for a 7:05 pm Central time start at Valley Fields. The Panthers are 1-4-2 on the year after losing 5-0 to Robert Morris in their Horizon League opener on Saturday afternoon. Hallwood will be suspended by red card rule for that match.