The Golden Eagles square off with the Hoyas to break up a tie atop the Big East standings.
On one hand, I think that Saturday’s Marquette men’s lacrosse game doesn’t matter too much for the Golden Eagles. It’s against a ranked team, that’s stepping up the degree of difficulty, it’s just one of five Big East games, and since it lands in the #2 spot on the schedule, there’s going to be a couple more chances to stack up the wins that MU needs to secure a Big East tournament berth.
On the other hand, it’s a gigantic opportunity for Marquette to prove their development as a team to this point of the season. Jake Richard’s team has won four straight since annoying #13 Harvard in a 20-16 loss back on March 1st in what was very clearly MU’s best performance against a ranked team this season. You can argue that Marquette hasn’t quite lived up to that performance since then, needing overtime to beat Utah and barely escaping with a 9-8 win over Air Force, sure….. but MU did win those games. They found a way to the end with the W. It’s hard to knock the results even if the journey wasn’t a picnic all the way through.
So this isn’t quite a House Money game for Marquette. They don’t have enough in the bank to truly say “nope, don’t have to worry about this one!” The margins on making the top four in a six team league are so small, you can’t truly dismiss any one chance at a win. But Marquette’s next win will give the Golden Eagles their best win total in a season since 2017 and since it’s nothing but Big East games the rest of the way, it’ll be the best league win total since 2022.
It’s right there in their hands. Reach out and grab it.
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Big East Game #2: vs #14 Georgetown Hoyas (6-3, 1-0 Big East)
Date: Saturday, April 5, 2025
Time: Noon Central
Location: Andy Glockner Memorial Bubble, Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: FloSports
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteMLax
Marquette is 5-9 all time against Georgetown. The series started out heavily tilted towards the Hoyas, as they took three of the first four and Marquette’s only win came in overtime. Marquette won the next four to take the lead in the series, but it’s been all Georgetown since the 2021 season. MU has been close the last two seasons, losing in overtime in 2023 and 11-8 last season in Washington, D.C. The game continues the streak of the Hoyas being ranked for this game for every meeting dating back to 2018.
Things are going about on plan for Georgetown this season. The Hoyas started out the year at #11 in the Inside Lacrosse preseason poll, and even with three losses, they come into Saturday at #14 in the poll. The losses, as you’d expect, are all to ranked teams and all with reasonable margins. 11-6 at then-#8 Johns Hopkins, 11-9 at home against then-#1 Notre Dame, and 13-12 at home against then-#14 Richmond. ASIDE: Shouts to the Spiders, who are now in the top 10. Georgetown has balanced out those three losses with a win over then-#13 Penn right in between the losses to Hopkins and the Irish, so that’s not terrible.
That all seems great, but either Providence is better than their 4-6 record or Georgetown miiiight have a flaw or two to exploit. The Hoyas started off Big East play with a 14-13 win over the Friars last Saturday that required Georgetown to go on a 4-1 tear in the middle of the fourth quarter to rally back from a 10-9 deficit. Even then, they had to hold off the Friars, as PC scored the final goal of the game with 2:42 to play. Georgetown won the ensuing draw and managed to burn off 2:20 from the clock thanks to a ground ball off a saved shot, but a turnover still gave Providence a chance to tie it up with 22 seconds left to play.
Marquette is going to have to devise a defensive gameplan that accounts for two guys who are roughly the exact same point producer. I’m sure there’s differences in how Aidan Carroll and Fulton Bayman get their points, but at the end of the day, the only difference on the stat sheet is that Carroll has 20 goals on 58 shots and Bayman has 19 goals on 54 shots. They both have 16 assists, which accounts for nearly half of Georgetown’s 70 helpers on the year. You probably can not shut down one with Mike Piraino glued to his hip without letting the other one get free more than you like, so we’ll have to see how the Golden Eagles deal with them.
Anderson Moore has started all nine game in net for Georgetown, and he’s played all but four minutes this season. His .506 save percentage is not so hot, but his field defense plays a big part on that end of things for GU, as Moore is #18 in the country in goals against average at 9.52 per 60 minutes. Defense is Georgetown’s less efficient end of the field according to Lacrosse Reference, but we’re talking about the difference between #16 and #27 here. Georgetown is going to probably be a bit methodical on the offensive end (#63 in pace) so MU is going to have to 1) be patient on the defensive end themselves and 2) be quick to take advantage of any chances that they get.
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