The Golden Eagles’ offense went bye-bye in the third quarter, and that allowed the Pioneers to grab control in Marquette’s season finale.
A hilarious amount of lightning strikes in the Rocky Mountains delayed the start time between Marquette and #6 Denver by more than two hours on Friday night. That pushed the first draw behind the Pioneers’ paywall past 10pm, and with Marquette’s season over no matter what the result was, yeah, I didn’t watch this one.
NEW RECORD: 142 lightning strikes within 8 miles, including these ones. Clock reset to 30. #GoPios pic.twitter.com/zEgCoucKUW
— Denver Men’s Lacrosse (@DU_MLAX) April 27, 2024
But for two quarters, with the rain still falling, even with Denver scoring immediately off the opening faceoff, Marquette went at it hammer and tongs with the #6 team in the country. At halftime, it was 7-5 Denver, and given all of the problems that the Golden Eagles have had this season, that’s pretty dang good stuff. MU got doubled up in shots in the first quarter, but unloaded on Denver to the tune of 12-4 in the second, and that almost makes you wonder why they couldn’t get it closer than two goals at the break.
And then the second half started, and the underlying numbers for the third quarter mostly don’t look like there was anything wrong. Denver outshot Marquette 8-5, which you don’t want but that’s not bad. Three turnovers for both sides, no problem there.
Faceoffs and ground balls? Yeah, 5-1 favoring the Pioneers for the third quarter, and they scooped up nine of the 11 ground balls in the period as well. That was obviously assisted by the faceoff margin, but still, that extra hustle edge tells us something…… and that something is Denver blanking Marquette 5-0 in the third. 12-5 after three quarters, a 6-0 run dating back to Richie Connell’s goal with 2:11 left before halftime, and that’s your ball game. 8-1 run if you want to look at it that way, as Noah Manning scored with 7:39 to go to make it 14-6.
Your final, from the mountains, #6 Denver 15, Marquette 9. That’s the game, that’s the season, as MU was already eliminated from Big East tournament contention before this game started.
Marquette finishes the year with a record of 4-10 after starting out 3-0, and they go 0-5 in Big East play for the first time in program history. In fact, they’ve won just one Big East contest in the last two seasons. That’s not great.