Marquette Men’s Soccer Announces 2023 Schedule

Do you like it when Marquette plays at home? The men’s soccer team certainly hopes so. They released their 2023 schedule on Monday, and the only time that Louis Bennett and the Golden Eagles will leave Milwaukee is to play Big East opponents. They have just one away non-conference match, and that’s merely taking the Milwaukee Cup over to the east side of town to face Milwaukee to renew that series. 11 home games on the schedule is the most for a Marquette squad since 1987.

Heck, two of Marquette’s three exhibition contests will be at home. They’ll host Northwestern and Loyola Chicago on August 11th and August 15th respectively before wrapping up preseason play on August 18th with a visit to Green Bay. I presume that’s just to get everyone in the rhythm of getting on and off the bus once they have to actually do that for the first time in September.

The season officially starts on Thursday, August 24th. To celebrate the freshmen moving into their residence halls on campus, Marquette men’s soccer invited the only university named after a rap star to campus, as Drake will provide the opposition. The Bulldogs start off a regular theme to the schedule, that of unfamiliar faces. Marquette hasn’t faced Drake since 2014, and the Golden Eagles have moved to an 8-2-1 record all time against them thanks to three wins in the last three meetings.

Marquette will play six matches before starting Big East play in mid-September. Next up is Purdue Fort Wayne, who haven’t been on the schedule since the first ever meeting in 1996, and that was a Marquette win. MU is also undefeated against Detroit Mercy, picking up three wins in the all time series, but none since 1990. The next two foes — Harvard and UT-Rio Grande Valley — are on the schedule for the first time ever. Like I said: unfamiliar faces.

That changes with MU’s final match before Big East play starts, as Wisconsin will come to Valley Fields on September 11th. MU is just 18-31-11 all time against the Badgers, and they haven’t beaten them since 2019. A road trip to Creighton just four days later starts Big East play as well as kick off a three match road stretch. Well, “road” stretch, as MU visits Milwaukee on September 19th with an eye on retaining the Milwaukee Cup as well as recording back-to-back wins over the Panthers for the first time since 2008 and 2009.

After visiting Butler and hosting St. John’s, Marquette will cram in one more non-conference contest, although this one is a familiar face. Northern Illinois will be in Milwaukee for the 31st meeting in the series. The two teams couldn’t work out a meeting last season, and Marquette’s last win in the series came in the timeshifted 2020/spring 2021 season.

There will be just eight Big East matches on the schedule this season. Why not 10? Because Akron has joined the league and divisional play is now in effect. That gives the Big East 12 teams for men’s soccer, and thus a pair of six team divisions. Marquette will play each of the other five teams in their division once and then add three teams from the East division to round out the slate to eight contests. This means no Seton Hall, Villanova, or Providence on the slate this season. Akron is in the Midwest Division with Marquette, and the Golden Eagles will head to Ohio to face them on October 21st. That will be the first meeting between the two sides since the 2013 NCAA tournament and the first regular season match since 1998. Marquette got the win in the postseason 10 years ago, but they have never beaten the Zips in the regular season.

Marquette went 5-9-4 last season with a 1-5-4 record in Big East play. Hopefully returning nine starters from that team means that the Golden Eagles can build on the continuity of the roster to turn some results around this fall.

Here’s the full schedule!