Marquette women’s lacrosse came into Monday’s game against No. 4 Northwestern with a lot to prove.
The Golden Eagles were coming off their first loss at Louisville, looking to get their first road win of the season and get back above .500, all while beating the Northwestern Wildcats for the first time in program history.
Alas, Marquette (1-2) fell short, losing to No. 1 Northwestern (2-1) 21-3 at Ryan Fieldhouse.
Marquette’s turnovers bring scoring consequences
Northwestern came out hot with the first goal of the game in under 20 seconds. While junior Meg Bireley was able to equalize for Marquette just 57 seconds later, it would be the Golden Eagles’ only goal for the next 25 minutes.
In the first half, Marquette committed 17 turnovers that presented Northwestern with many transition opportunities and led to 13 goals for the Wildcats.
By halftime, three individual players for Northwestern had hat tricks while the Golden Eagles had only two goals as a whole team. Attackers Dylan Amonte and Madison Taylor would end the night as Northwestern’s highest scorers with four goals each.
The Golden Eagles gave up 26 overall turnovers — 16 of which were caused by the Wildcats — and forced Northwestern to commit only two of its 13 total.
Northwestern runs away with the lead
Coming back from an 11-goal deficit after halftime is a difficult task for any team, especially when Marquette couldn’t stop Northwestern from scoring, which was the case Monday.
The Wildcats came out of the locker room and scored four goals in the third quarter, before putting the nail in the coffin with another four in the final frame.
Marquette’s one goal and glimmer of hope from the second half came from first-year attacker Eileen Dooley, who scored her first-career goal after another 25-minute Marquette scoring drought. The score came from a 2-man advantage.
The Golden Eagles were outshot by the Wildcats 45-11, putting 10 on net.
Up next
The Golden Eagles will continue their away game streak at Jacksonville Saturday. The match is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. CST.
This article was written by Sofie Hanrahan. She can be reached at sofia.hanrahan@marquette.edu or on Twitter @SofieHanrahanMU.