#18 Men’s Soccer Falls In 2OT To Wisconsin

Things are officially not good for the Golden Eagles.

Marquette men’s soccer came into Monday night’s match on a two game losing streak. The first was understandable, as it was against a Tulsa team that had just knocked off the #8 team in the country just a few days prior and it was 1-0 and closely contested all the way through. The second match? Bad, all around, 3-0 on the road with all three goals coming in the first 30 minutes.

So, you’d think that would give the Golden Eagles a bit of motivation heading into their contest against Wisconsin. That’s a Badgers team that was picked to finish last in the Big 10, mind you, and they were just 1-2-2 on the year after beating Butler on Friday night.

And somehow, Marquette got outshot 14-9 and lost in double overtime on a goal in the 108th minute. 3-3-0 on the year, and since that was the non-conference finale, we are stuck asking a lot of questions about how the Golden Eagles are going to finish in the top six of the Big East and qualify for the conference tournament.

The first half was wildly dull with the two teams spending most of the time booting it around in the middle third of the park. We didn’t get a shot at all until the 27th minute, and only a last second shot — literally, it’s credited at 45:00 exactly — by MU’s Alex Mirsberger gave us three total shots between the two teams in the first half.

As you can tell, business picked up in the second half in terms of getting up and down the field, but Marquette didn’t make too many strong challenges in general and only mustered four shots. On the other end, Chandler Hallwood made two saves on 10 Wisconsin shots to preserve a scoreless draw heading into overtime.

We’re left wondering what might have happened in the closing moments of regulation, though. There was what I thought was an uncalled foul on the sideline closest to the grandstand at Valley Fields, as the Marquette player turned away from contact with the Wisconsin defender to play the ball into open space just across midfield with nothing but grass in front of him…. But was shoved/tackled/driven/whatever to the ground. Who knows what it turns into, but it could have been a scoring chance in the final 20 seconds. MU head coach Louis Bennett took a yellow card in between regulation and the start of overtime while protesting the lack of a call, just to give you an idea of what he thought about it from the opposite sideline.

Marquette mustered three shots in the first 10 minute overtime session, yes, just one fewer than the entire 45 minute second half, but they came up empty on two and Wisconsin keeper Carter Abbott made a stop on a Mirsberger attempt in the 94th minute to keep things 0-0 and headed to another 10 minute extra session.

Wisconsin had the only two shots of extra time. The second and final shot came from Jack Finnegan as he made the secondary play on a corner kick to head it into the net where Hallwood had very little chance to do anything about it.

Bleh.

Up Next: As mentioned above, Big East play now begins. Marquette gets things going on Saturday, September 18th, when Villanova comes to town. The Wildcats are 4-1-0 on the year with a win over Temple back on Saturday as their most recent match.