In the final game of the season for Marquette men’s soccer (7-7-2, 1-7-0 Big East), Friday’s bout with the Villanova Wildcats (7-6-5, 2-3-3) — holders of the bottom seed in the east division — was always going to be a game where both sides played like they had nothing to lose.
By the final whistle, Marquette’s season-long woes of conference performance caught up to them yet again, as they were defeated 1-0.
Coming off of a 2-0 loss to No. 20 Akron, the Golden Eagles had been eliminated from contention for the Big East tournament for multiple weeks, and their main objective in Friday night’s affair was to give their seniors as sweet of a farewell as possible in claiming three points.
On the other end, Villanova put together a better conference record than Marquette, but still sat comfortably outside of any shot at postseason play. However, the Wildcats were more hungry than anyone to grab a win at the end of the campaign
That hunger was apparent as the game got underway and Villanova players were applying a pressure unlike many of Marquette’s opponents have. That startling development built up to an early cross, which Matthew Klann rifled into the bottom corner of the net to give the Wildcats an advantage after only eight minutes.
Despite the ball moving back and forth at the feet of each team during the remainder of the half, both sides only generated three more shots on target before halftime, with none posing any serious threat towards either keeper.
“Too many of our shots, especially in the first half, were off target,” said Marquette head coach David Korn. “We just needed to be a little bit better there.”
In the second half, Marquette really turned up the gear in attempt to pulling itself level. After an early chance by Wildcat striker Sam Nyenka, the Golden Eagles controlled virtually all of the possession and opportunities until the final whistle.
Despite this, Villanova held the blue & gold to only four shots on goal in that extended period, as well as making some key individual plays at their goalmouth to stop an equalizer.
“We just kept trying to knock on the door and knock on the door, unfortunately, we didn’t break through,” said senior captain Justin Milovanov. “They defended well, had a couple goal line clearances, and today just wasn’t our day.”
As the last whistle of the 2025 season blew, there were a lot of “bittersweet” emotions for Milovanov, his fellow seniors and all other Marquette compatriots both on the field and off.
“It’s the cruel part sometimes about the sport, I feel like for our players that are graduating, to send them out with a win would have been fantastic,” Korn said. “But I’m still proud of what they’ve done throughout the course of the season and throughout the career that they’ve had of here.”
This article was written by Eamon Bevan. He can be reached at eamon.bevan@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @EamonBevanMU.