Marquette Held Until They Didn’t At Providence

Mikki Easter made seven saves as Marquette women’s soccer got outshot 15-6 on Thursday night, but physics is a harsh mistress and so Marquette lost 1-0 to Providence. The Golden Eagles are now 5-7-3 overall and 2-3-1 in Big East play, while the Friars move to 3-0-3 in the league.

It’s a pretty familiar story at this point: Marquette couldn’t muster much in the way of offensive pressure on that end, Providence was able to keep the ball mostly on their offensive half of the field, they kept knocking, and eventually things worked out and they scored a goal. Shots were 8-3 favoring the Friars at halftime, but it definitely felt worse than that.

That feeling definitely got worse as Providence amassed the first four shots of the second half, all in the first six minutes. But Marquette tightened it up a bit, and things kind of pushed into a stalemate and it was starting to feel like MU might find a way to guide this things to a scoreless draw.

And then, in the 82nd minute, the luck of deflections in the box had Easter off balance and moving behind where the ball was as Kayla Briggs knocked in the game winner. It wasn’t the world’s greatest shot, but it doesn’t have to be when you’ve got the space to put it in.

And that’s your ball game.

It’s a frustrating performance from Marquette because either A) they’re bad at offense or B) they were trying to just stall out the Friars and cross their fingers for a draw. Either one is no fun. Losing 1-0 on a goal in the final 10 minutes when the shots are 15-14 is something entirely different, y’know?

Up Next: Marquette’s next game is out on the east coast, just not quite as far east. They’ll travel southwest to Philadelphia for Sunday’s match at Villanova, which is set for a Noon Central time start. The Wildcats dropped to 1-4-1 in Big East play and 4-4-6 overall with a 2-0 loss on the road at #22 Georgetown on Thursday in a match where they got outshot 19-2.