Marquette Wins A Very Weird Game At Detroit Mercy

Marquette men’s lacrosse had a game on the road against Detroit Mercy on Thursday that 1) wasn’t supposed to be on Thursday as it was hastily rescheduled due to bad weather that’s going to hit Detroit on Friday and 2) didn’t have a video stream available. Heck, even Marquette didn’t have equipment available to just throw this thing up on YouTube for us.

In any case, it was a mystery box of a game, and one that I didn’t have a real plan to be able to keep an eye on due to, y’know, surprise rescheduling out of nowhere. But I said to myself heading into the game, hey, Marquette just took full control of a contest against a Michigan team that was earning top 20 votes, and they’re 8-1 all time against UDM, they’ve got this, right?

So, imagine my surprise when I said “oh, shoot, it’s been a minute since lacrosse started” on Thursday and checked the live stats real quick-like to find out that Detroit Mercy was up 4-2 at the half. Turns out lacrosse games go by real fast if there’s not goals to stop the clock for a couple of minutes at a time. This is a Detroit Mercy team that lost 17-2 in their most recent game. They doubled that total in 30 minutes against Marquette, and MU had only found the net twice after being the only team to score a goal — literally a goal, singular, non-plural — in the entire first quarter.

So I says to myself, “self, do not let this mess with your day, check back in 30 minutes and see what happens.”

What happened was Marquette outscoring Detroit 3-0 in the third quarter and 5-0 in the fourth quarter to take a 10-4 lead and only a David Lamarca penalty with 45 seconds to go allowed the Titans to get a goal at all in the second half. Your final from Titan Field: Marquette 10, Detroit Mercy 5, a totally normal lacrosse score, much more in line with maybe what I expected in my head from this game.

It’s not like Marquette dominated Detroit Mercy after halftime either, by the way. Shots in the third quarter were 14-9 for the Titans and it was 11-9 in the fourth. Marquette did put 13 of their 18 shots on frame, which definitely helps you put eight goals in the net.

From the looks of things — and I mean from the looks of the box score because again, no video — Michael Allieri is the hero of the day. He made six saves in the first half as the Marquette offense managed just one goal on 16 shots and just five shots on target. Allieri also tallied up 11 saves after halftime, including three in the third quarter before Bobby O’Grady put Marquette up 5-4 with 4:19 to go in the frame.

Here’s head coach Andrew Stimmel’s quotes about the game as provided from the official Marquette game recap:

“I’m really proud of our team’s response on a day when we didn’t have our best,” said Marquette head coach Andrew Stimmel. ”We knew coming up here on a short week, fourth away game in a row, was going to be a massive challenge. Ultimately we started slow and that’s on me to make sure we are ready to play.”

“Credit to Detroit and their goalie play, especially in the first half,” Stimmel said. “I think he had double digit saves and really dictated those first 30 minutes. We settled for a couple average shots early and that only fueled his confidence & put us behind.”

NOTE: Jakob Hemme finished with 16 saves for the Titans. Continuing with Stimmel:

“A credit to our guys - they stepped up,” Stimmel said. “No panic, just guys challenging each other and themselves to execute better and make more toughness plays than we did in the first half.

“I thought our sideline juice throughout the game was a difference maker. Guys picking each other up, staying in the fight with positive emotion throughout the game. Even when we weren’t playing our best, they found a way to energize our effort in the second half.”

Devon Cowan had a hat trick coming off the bench in his biggest offensive performance of the season, and he added an assist, too. Luke Blanc, Jackson Rose, and Bobby O’Grady all scored two goals, with O’Grady’s markers being particularly notable because the Michigan game was the first of his Marquette career where he did not score at all. Jake Stegman and Matthew Winegardner both had two assists to lead MU there, while four Golden Eagles had three ground balls, including Cole Emmanuel, who won six of his 10 faceoffs in the game.

Up Next: How about a home game?! Marquette hasn’t played at Valley Fields since their opener against Lindenwood on National Marquette Day back on February 4th. Bellarmine will be in Milwaukee for a Noon Central time start on Saturday, March 11th. The Knights are 3-1 on the year so far and will host VMI this Saturday before making the trip north from Louisville.