Garcia Breaks Two Scoring Records In Marquette’s Win Over Xavier

Xavier scored first, and nearly two minutes into the game and after Marquette had two possessions, by the way, so Marquette’s 22-7 win over the visiting Musketeers is officially a come from behind win. The Golden Eagles are now a program best 12-1, breaking the single season wins record for the second time this week, and they move to 2-0 in Big East play as well.

XU’s Jess Harrison gets the credit for the first goal of the game, and perhaps scoring first emboldened the Musketeers. For the first 11 minutes of this game, things were going back and forth. Marquette took a 3-1 lead, sure, but Xavier kept it close, getting a Lola Mancuso goal to make it 5-4, with 6:08 to go in the first quarter.

And then Shea Garcia decided that she had seen enough.

She already had a hat trick, getting her third goal of the game with 8:15 left in the period. After Mancuso’s goal, Garcia scored FOUR MORE TIMES before the quarter was over as MU closed out the frame on a 7-0 run to make it 12-4. Yes, really, 12-4 at the end of the first quarter. Garcia’s seventh and final goal of the quarter, coming with just seconds left in the period, gave her 200 career points and broke Grace Gabriel’s program record for points in a career and, as you can guess, made Garcia the first 200 point player in program history.

Marquette tacked on two more goals to start the second quarter to make it a 9-0 run and start the running clock with a 14-4 lead. Xavier pulled two back, Marquette got them back, reactivated the clock at the 5:56 mark while up 16-6, and then scored one more before the half, 17-6 at the break.

Just three total goals for in the third period, but the second one, with 5:52 to play, was from Garcia. That was her eighth of the game, and that is also a program record. This time it’s breaking Megan Menzuber’s single game goals record of seven, which was set against Detroit Mercy on March 11, 2020. Nothing against Menzuber here, but I want to point out that Garcia tied the record in the first quarter. That’s CRAZY.

Xavier scored their final goal of the game with 2:16 left in the third, and then Marquette’s deep bench held the Musketeers scoreless the rest of the way. The bench also added three goals, one each from Lily Dietrich, Elle Wagner, and Sayla Lotysz, and Wagner’s was the first career tally for the redshirt sophomore.

Garcia’s eight goals on eight shots is hard to beat for the best performance of the day buuuuuuut we do have to point out that Mary Schumar finished with two goals and six assists to at least tie Garcia for the team high in points for the day. Meg Bireley came in with the second best point total here, getting four on two goals and two assists. Ellie Henry did Ellie Henry things, getting two ground balls along with game highs in caused turnovers (4) and draw controls (9). In fact, Henry’s draw control total was more than Xavier’s entire team for the day.

Up Next: It’s a big time Big East showdown next Saturday. The Golden Eagles will be back at home for their next encounter, and they will welcome UConn to Valley Fields for an 11am Central time start. The Huskies were ranked #25 in the country this week in the IWLCA/ILWomen top 25 poll, but they took a 14-9 home loss to #3 Denver on Saturday.