Creighton Hands Marquette Their First Big East Loss

Two goals, each about midway through their respective halves, were the story of the match on Thursday night at Valley Fields as the visiting Creighton Bluejays picked up a 2-0 win over Marquette. The Golden Eagles are now 6-4-1 overall and 2-1-0 in Big East play after dropping their first league contest in this match while the Bluejays picked up their first conference win after an 0-2-0 start.

Both goals scored by the visitors were perfectly played by their respective scorer. You’re not going to see much better of a shot than the one that Lara Kazandjian fired off in the 22nd minute. Given the location of the crossbar and how high MU keeper Chloe Olson can reach while leaping, Kazandjian had maybe a ball-and-a-half’s worth of space to slot home a shot right in the middle of the net, and that’s exactly where her shot went.

I can’t help but wonder what a little bit more pressure from the Golden Eagles’ defense could have done to Kazandjian’s effort to lace that one exactly where it needed to be. Alas.

Shots in the first half ended up 6-4 favoring Creighton, just like they would in the second half, but the Golden Eagles did get a nice sustained push in the closing stages of the first 45 minutes. Three of MU’s shots came after CU’s goal, including one that had to be stopped by Keelan Terrell, and MU stacked up three corner kicks, too. Nothing doing, so 1-0 at the intermission.

The second half felt like Creighton was doing a lot better job stifling Marquette’s attack, but they weren’t necessarily pushing too hard up the field themselves. With that said, a scuffle near the post on an attempted cross in the 73rd minute turned into a corner kick for the Bluejays, and Aida Kardovic’s launch angle found Jordy Rothwell perfectly for the insurance policy.

Almost didn’t get it, given that it was still rising when it went into the net, but it slipped under the crossbar, and that would do it for goals on the night as well as for Marquette’s chances at a third straight win to start Big East play. MU would managed just two more shots the rest of the way, including one in the 90th minute that Terrell stopped to preserve her clean sheet but didn’t need to stop to preserve her victory.

Up Next: Marquette will return to action on Sunday afternoon with a home date against UConn. First kick is set for 1pm Central time in Milwaukee. The Huskies are coming in off the back of a 1-0 loss to Georgetown on Thursday which gives them a loss in each of their last two matches.