Marquette Men’s Lacrosse Falls In Overtime To A Top 15 Team For The Third Straight Week

I said before at least on Twitter, maybe not here, but I’ll say it again: Marquette men’s lacrosse is going about missing the Big East tournament in the absolutely most heartbreaking way possible.

Two weeks ago, it was forcing #10 Georgetown to overtime with two late goals before losing without even having possession in the extra period.

Last week, it was getting forced to overtime by #13 Villanova with a goal with less than 40 seconds to play in regulation and then losing in overtime without even having possession in the extra period.

This time? In the regular season finale? Well, the good news is Marquette found a new way to lose to a top 15 team in overtime. This time it was Marquette scoring three goals in the final six minutes, including a pair with less than two minutes to play and the overtime forcing goal with just 11 seconds left in regulation..... and then losing the draw..... but getting the stop and the clear for their first possession in overtime in these three game, getting off one shot, turning the ball over with lots of time left on the shot clock, and then losing to a Stephen Avery goal coming running down the right side of the cage.

Final from the Valley: #10 Denver 15, Marquette 14.

The real bummer of the situation is that it looked, for a second, like Marquette might be on the verge of holding control of the game. For the first 11 minutes of the second quarter, Marquette had held Denver without a goal in the period while scoring three of their own, and then after Richie Connell broke through for the Pios, Bobby O’Grady answered with one of his six goals in the game. That’s Marquette up 7-6 on the #10 team in the country with 2:33 left before halftime. I still don’t really know what happened on this goal, because from my seat in the stands, it certainly looked like O’Grady paddling a Jake Stegman pass through the middle of the field and past Malcolm Kleban.

And then it went sideways on Marquette for about 75 seconds. Lucas Lawas made a save on an Avery shot, one of 15 in the game for the freshman goalie. At that point, the shot clock goes off, because there’s less than 80 seconds left, although I guess it should run for 20 seconds so the referees know if MU gets the clearance done in 20 seconds, but you get the point. Marquette has lots of time..... and Lawas just stands in his crease and tries to throw an outlet pass down the middle of field.... and it’s easily deflected by DU’s JJ Sillstrop, picked up by Connell, and thrown in the net. 7-7 tie, Denver wins the draw because they were destroying Marquette on faceoffs in this game, 22-11 by the end, they call a timeout, they run something, and get a goal from Jack Tortolani with four seconds left in the half.

8-7 Denver.

And then it got worse for Marquette, as a Connell goal, one of four in the game, but somehow felt like about 12, put Denver up 11-9 with 8:03 left in the third. That stretch, 5-2 favoring the Pioneers across a little less than nine minutes of game time, is probably what ultimately doomed Marquette here. Close to a lead going into the locker room, ended up trailing, let the margin balloon to two goals with a quarter and a half to play.

Marquette fought through it, and goals from O’Grady and Hayden Miller less than 50 seconds apart, tied the game back up at 11. Shouts specifically to Miller for following through on his shot as he saw the defender barreling up at him.

And then some hinkiness happened.

I’m reading off the live stats and mixing in my recall here. Lawas makes a save on a Mic Kelly shot with 2:25 to go, shot clock resets to 60. Okay, fine, them’s the rules. 1:49 to go, Connell shoots, and one of the referees signals for a clock reset. Okay, fine..... but now there’s a discussion, and no, Lawas didn’t actually get that one, so the clock should not have reset.... but it already did and it appears that no one knows what the shot clock should read now. SPOILER ALERT: You can read the live stats and do math to figure out that 36 of the 60 seconds have wound off, clock should read 24. But no one knows, so I’m guessing the call here is inadvertent whistle, and they put the clock at 45 seconds. You can see where this is going. Connell scores — because of course he’s the one scoring — with 1:20 left on the clock. Well within the 45 seconds, just 29 seconds later..... but 29 is obviously more than 24 which is what Denver should have had to shoot.

And then Sillstrop scored with 12 seconds left in the quarter to make it 13-11 Denver with 15 minutes to play.

And then Kelly scored just over three minutes into the fourth, 14-11.

And then Marquette couldn’t come up with a goal for what felt like forever, not until Will Foster bullied his way into shooting space to beat Kleban, 14-12, 5:31 to go.

Denver takes a shot clock violation because what do they care, burning 80 seconds is a wonderful use of their time.... and Marquette goes out of bounds on the clearance. Not a bad pass, just runs out of space and steps out. Noah Verlinde forces a turnover, that turns into an O’Grady goal, 14-13, 1:40 to go.

Denver wins the draw, because again, they’re crushing MU there, but this time it’s Mason Woodward forcing the turnover... but Marquette loses possession in the middle of the attacking zone, Denver loses the ball in the corner, gets a timeout, loses it immediately on the restart, refs blow it dead to explain the call they make, Denver calls timeout again so Marquette has to start with the ball behind their own net with 34 seconds to play and the game on the line.

AND SOMEHOW IT WORKS, SHOUTS TO JAKE STEGMAN.

I really do mean “somehow.” Marquette used up nearly all of the 20 seconds they had to get the ball clear across midfield and it really got jumbled up out near midfield, but once they get it running free, Stegman buries his shot on the run to force overtime.

I already summed up overtime up at the top, we don’t need to rehash it. It sucked, even though it was Marquette’s first possession in these three overtime games.

Up Next: The season is, somehow, not over, even though Marquette is now 1-4 in Big East play. There exists a pathway to the four team Big East tournament as the #4 seed if Providence loses to St. John’s on Saturday. That would tie MU, PC, and SJU all at 1-4 in the league, so someone has to get in, and who knows what tiebreaker would work, since they would all be 1-1 against each other and 0-3 against the rest of the conference. The PC/SJU game will start at 11am Central time on FloSports, and you can keep tabs with live stats right here.