Marquette Women’s Soccer Announces 2023 Schedule

Are you ready for some soccer?

Well, hopefully not too ready.

We’re just a little less than 11 weeks away from the start of the 2023 Marquette women’s soccer season, as the team announced their upcoming schedule on Thursday morning….. although they technically announced the non-conference opponents on Tuesday.

After one exhibition match against UW-Green Bay up north in their building, Marquette and head coach Frank Pelaez will get the season officially started by hosting Northwestern on August 17th. MU is 6-3-2 all time against the Wildcats, although the two teams haven’t met since 2016 and Marquette hasn’t picked up a win in the series since 2012. Northwestern is one of two 2022 NCAA tournament teams on Marquette’s non-conference slate, and NU went to the Sweet 16 last season.

Game #2 is Road Match #1, as the Golden Eagles will immediately depart from Milwaukee to head to the Rocky Mountains for a match against Colorado just days later. The two teams have met just once before, in 2018, with CU getting the win. Weirdly, Marquette’s next match will be back in Milwaukee against Denver, even though the Golden Eagles will be out in their neighborhood to face the Buffs. That will be the first of Marquette’s first two contests in the Milwaukee Challenge Cup, co-hosted with UW-Milwaukee, and it also happens to be the first ever meeting against Denver. Marquette’s other match in the event is again at home, this time against Minnesota. The two sides met last year, and Marquette hasn’t had a win against the Gophers in their 2-5-1 series since 2019.

August comes to an end with a road trip against Illinois-Chicago, as the two sides play for the third straight season. MU won the first meeting and they drew a year ago. September starts with Milwaukee coming across town to Valley Fields. The Golden Eagles are 10-11-8 all time against the Panthers and haven’t managed a win in the series since 2018. UWM is the other NCAA tournament team on the schedule, and they bowed out in overtime to Michigan State in the first round.

There have been just 16 meetings all time between Marquette and Wisconsin, believe it or not, but the series will renew this fall, this time in Madison. Not only have the two sides not met since 2019, but Marquette hasn’t beaten the Badgers since 2005.

That’s the last road non-conference contest. Marquette will wrap up non-conference play with a Thursday/Sunday set at home against Western Michigan and St. Thomas. Both of these squads were on last year’s schedule, and Marquette got wins in both of them. Interestingly, Sunday’s contest against the Tommies will also be Senior Day for Marquette. Marquette will play just two more Saturday/Sunday home games the rest of the season, so that’s not the worst idea in the world, to be honest.

Big East play starts the next weekend, September 21st and 24th, against DePaul and Butler. League action will continue through October 26th, when Marquette visits Xavier in the finale. That, combined with Georgetown in the third to last match of the regular season, means Marquette will have a tough road down the stretch if both the Hoyas and the Musketeers can approach last year’s unbeaten records again. Instead of Senior Day for the final home game of the regular season against St. John’s on Sunday, October 22nd, that will be the culmination of Alumni Weekend for the team.

Marquette went 7-7-4 last season with a record of 3-4-3 in Big East play. That unfortunately left the Golden Eagles three point short of qualifying for the conference tournament, the fifth straight season where they missed out on the postseason. Changing that trend will obviously be high on the list of things to do this coming season, and MU does return eight starters from last year’s team to hopefully build on their results.

Here’s the entire schedule for 2023!