Sunday was a tale of two halves for Marquette women’s soccer.
After only getting one shot in the first half, the Golden Eagles (3-7-2, 0-2-0 Big East) would get seven shots and five corner kicks in the second while keeping Creighton (4-4-1, 1-2-0) to zero offensive stats. But the damage had already been done in the first.
“Despite all the chaos, corner kicks and free kicks, she [the Creighton goalkeeper] leaves here only having to make one save,” Marquette head coach Chris Allen said. “It’s not good enough to go win a game, particularly on your home field.”
Marquette’s revamp too little too late
Creighton never looked like they were struggling to get opportunities at scoring in the first half. The same can’t be said for Marquette.
In the seventh minute, Creighton defender Maddie Radke got a shot at the top of the box, but the ball flew far over the goal.
The Bluejays would take this exact shot with the same result twice more before something finally clicked.
After an interception and a quick pass in the 31st minute, Anna Bragg took a shot from around 60 feet out. The ball slotted into the top right corner of the net, just out of reach of sophomore goalkeeper Elise Krone.
NO BETTER TIME FOR YOUR FIRST CAREER GOAL!!!
ANNA BRAGG GIVES THE BLUEJAYS A 1-0 LEAD IN THE 31ST MINUTE!!!
Creighton 1, Marquette 0#GoJays pic.twitter.com/LK9KzQREfW
— Creighton Women’s Soccer (@CreightonWSoc) September 29, 2024
Whenever Marquette’s attack got deep into Creighton’s side of the field, their defense wouldn’t give them a breath and stopped everything.
The Bluejay attack wasn’t letting up either as they would earn four more shots before Marquette got its first in the 45th minute courtesy of senior midfielder Maggie Starker.
Though, in the next 16 minutes, the Golden Eagles would start to turn that around — logging four shots and three corner kicks.
“We had to change formation,” Allen said. “We sacrificed the midfield and we just said ‘Stop passing to each other and challenge their back line, put some balls over the top, see how they handle it, collect it. Let’s go play in their end, not ours.’”
During that same time, both teams were scrapping for everything and becoming aggressive.
In the second half, there would be 22 fouls and 6 yellow cards given out. Each team’s head coach was booked with a yellow card and with nine minutes left in the game, so would the Creighton bench.
Despite two back-to-back corner kicks and a close free kick in the final five minutes, Marquette couldn’t get it done.
Krone back in play
After starting the first four games of the season in net, Elise Krone was replaced by Chloe Olson for the next six. Krone started again in Indianapolis in the team’s previous game against Butler and the same happened Sunday. Against Creighton, she faced eight shots and made two saves.
Allen said that, in the future, the starting goalie will be a day-to-day decision.
Up next
Marquette will travel to Queens, New York to take on St. Johns University on Thursday, October 3 at 6 p.m. CST.
This recap was written by Ben Hanson. He can be reached at benjamin.hanson@marquette.edu or on Twitter/x @benhansonMU.