The Golden Eagles open the season with six straight home matches, and they will see just one 2024 NCAA tournament team in non-conference play
Marquette Golden Eagles men’s soccer made the third fall schedule announcement for Golden Eagles athletics on Wednesday evening/Thursday morning, leaving us with just the volleyball Big East schedule left to go.
It’s a home-heavy schedule for head coach David Korn in his second season in charge. In addition to two home exhibition matches, Marquette starts the regular season with six straight home contests. All six of those are non-conference matches, and in total, eight of MU’s nine non-con contests are at Valley Fields this year. Mix in the four home Big East matches in the eight match league slate, and that’s 12 home matches on the schedule for the Golden Eagles.
Marquette will go Thursday/Sunday in each of the first two weeks of the season. They start off the year by hosting Bradley on August 21st, one day after the new freshmen move into their residence halls. This is the first time that Marquette is playing Bradley since a 4-2 overtime victory in 1993. I think it’s fascinating that the only meeting in program history happened two different overtime rule changes ago. Three days later, MU gets their only non-conference game against a team that played in the 2024 NCAA tournament, as North Florida comes to the Valley for the first meeting between the two sides. UNF went 7-8-4 last year but won the ASUN tournament as the #2 seed to reach the NCAA field for the second time in program history.
The next weekend somewhat mirrors the first in terms of history with the two opponents. Marquette will host Drake for just the second meeting between the two teams since 2014. Marquette has won four straight against the Bulldogs with the most recent loss in the series coming back in 2009. Then, on Sunday, it will be Chicago State making the trip up north to face MU, and like North Florida, this will be the first ever meeting against CSU.
Things space out a little bit on the schedule after that, with MU playing on each of the next two Saturdays for their next two matches. They will host Wisconsin on September 6th to continue the in-state series that has landed on the slate in every season of MU team history except for either of the two seasons that happened in 2021. The Golden Eagles are just 1-3-0 over the past four meetings since resuming the series, but Marquette did win the last time the match was in Milwaukee. One week later, it’s time for another first time ever opponent when Lipscomb makes the trip from Nashville.
That ends the run of home matches as six days later, the Golden Eagles will start off Big East play on the road against Creighton on Friday, September 19th. The Milwaukee Cup pops up next on the schedule, with Marquette going over to Milwaukee to try to extend their hold on the Cup to a program record fourth straight year after two ties in the last two meetings kept it in MU’s possession.
That match against UWM kicks off a bit of a trend for Marquette, as it’s all weekend Big East matches for the rest of the season with the exception of the three remaining non-conference contests, all of which are mid-week contests. Marquette hosts Illinois-Chicago on Tuesday October 7th, and then brings Division 3 Edgewood to the Valley on Tuesday, October 21st, for not just Senior Night, but also the final non-conference game of the year. Marquette is 6-5-2 all time against UIC after losing to the Flames a year ago and they haven’t beat UIC at home since 2012. Last year’s Senior Night was the first ever meeting against Edgewood, and Marquette won a mostly speaking lopsided 1-0 contest.
It’s important to note that Marquette’s official schedule lists the Big East semifinals and championship. There’s not an official announcement in this regard, but that sounds an awful lot like only the top two finishers in each of the divisions in the league — remember Akron is still an affiliate member — will qualify for the conference tournament. That’s probably going to make it a little bit harder for the Golden Eagles to reach the postseason for the first time since the timeshifted spring 2021 season, but those are the rules that everyone’s playing by this year.
Here’s the whole rundown on the 2025 schedule, with times and everything!
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