Marquette Men’s Soccer Gets Blanked By Northern Illinois

Did the St. John’s match break Marquette men’s soccer?

On Monday night, three days after failing to score against a 10 man St. John’s squad that went down to just nine men for the final 25 minutes, Marquette found themselves unable to put the ball in the net again. This time, it was while handing Northern Illinois the business end of a 16-5 shot differential, but it was the Huskies who made the best use of their resources.

An Angel Rodriguez shot in the 79th minute was the difference on Monday night, and NIU walked away with a 1-0 victory over the Golden Eagles. It is the second straight shutout loss for Marquette after they put at least one shot into the net in each of their first nine matches of the season.

It’s not that Marquette’s shots were bad. Six of their eight first half attempts were on frame but stopped by NIU keeper Atahan Arslan, and the other two missed high in the “ooh, so close” kind of missed high. Things went sideways in the second half for the Golden Eagles as they mustered up another eight shots but just one was on target and stopped by Arslan. Just two of the attempts came after Rodriguez’s game winner, so it’s not like the Golden Eagles stacked up chances in the final 10 minutes desperately trying to find an equalizer.

Up Next: Marquette will return to action on Saturday to begin the final five matches of the season, all in Big East play. They’ll be back at Valley Fields for a rare weekend afternoon start, with first kick against Xavier coming at 3pm Central time. The Musketeers are 5-3-1 on the year right now with a 2-1-0 mark in Big East contests, although they will visit Ohio State on Tuesday night.