Marquette Women’s Lacrosse Opens Up The Season With A Win

It took a little bit for the goals to start coming, but once they did, Marquette women’s lacrosse was able to keep the faucet running all game long. Lydia Foust led the Golden Eagles with seven goals as Marquette picked up the 20-13 victory over San Diego State. It’s the first win of the year for the Golden Eagles, and since it came in the season opener, Marquette is now 1-0 on the year.

There was over eight minutes of lacrosse played at Valley Fields on Sunday afternoon before anyone found the back of the net, and it was SDSU’s Brook Waddell who broke the ice on the day and put the visitors up 1-0. That would be the only lead of the day for the Aztecs, as Foust pulled MU even less than two minutes later and Mary Schumar tacked on her first goal of the season just over 30 seconds after Foust’s opener.

That made it 2-1 Marquette after the first 15 minutes, and credit where credit’s due: SDSU goalie Sam Horan made not one, not two, but NINE saves in the first quarter. That would end up being half her saves for the entire game, so it’s an incredibly impressive performance.... but also a hint that things were going to turn Marquette’s way.

That turn happened less than a minute into the second quarter when Shea Garcia scored her first goal of the season, this one coming off the free position shot. That made it 3-1 Marquette, and it was the first of TEN second quarter goals by Marquette. San Diego State started to toss in some goals, and a woman-up goal from Waddell made it a 5-3 game with 10:34 to play before halftime. That’s where Marquette’s offense really got going, and they scored five goals in just a shade under five minutes. That run included the first career goal for freshman Tess Osburn to get it started and both goals that Leigh Steiner scored in the contest to wrap up the run at 10-3 Marquette with 5:09 left before the break. Those are two big goals from Steiner, as she hasn’t played for the Golden Eagles since the second game of the 2022 season after a season ending injury.

SDSU got a third goal from Waddell to break up the Golden Eagles’ run, but Foust and Garcia hung two more on the board before halftime to make it 12-4 heading to the locker rooms.

The offense slowed down in the third with the two teams combining for just five goals after posting 13 in the second, but it was 3-2 Marquette in that 15 minute chunk so they increased their lead to nine, 15-6, heading to the fourth. The margin was briefly 10 late in the quarter when Hannah Greving scored with the woman advantage, which marked her first goal since the second game of last season after she suffered her own season ending injury.

San Diego State scored the final goal of the third, plus the first two goals of the fourth to climb back within eight, 15-8. The visitors would end up outscoring Marquette 7-5 in the final 15 minutes, but they never quite made it into a real threat. The closest that the Aztecs got was five goals at 17-12 with 8:10 to play. I’m sure there was a strong message from head coach Meredith Black there, something along the lines of “No further!” and SDSU wouldn’t get any closer. Garcia scored 40 seconds later and the Golden Eagles tacked on two more goals in the final three minutes to wrap it up.

The Golden Eagles gave up four goals each to SDSU’s top two offensive players, Brook Waddell and Deanna Balsama, but no one else hit the net twice as sophomore Brynna Nixon played the full 60 minutes and made seven saves for the win. MU’s offense was led by Foust’s seven goals, which propelled her past the 100 career goal mark in the game, and she tacked on an assist for a game high eight points. Shea Garcia wasn’t too far behind with four goals and two assists, and Tess Osburn had a great first career game with a pair of goals and an assist to go with three grounds balls.

How about some highlights, courtesy of GoMarquette.com and FloSports?

Up Next: Marquette will be back in action this coming weekend with a pair of road games out in the Buckeye State. On Friday, they will visit Youngstown State for a noon Central time start, and then they’ll have an 11am CT start on Sunday on the other end of the state against Cincinnati. The Penguins opened up their season on Sunday with a 19-18 win over fellow Big East squad Butler, while the Bearcats are 2-0 on the year after beating Kent State 14-7 at home on Friday and going to Gardner-Webb for a 20-9 victory on Sunday.