The Golden Eagles wrap up the regular season with a Friday matinee before they start scoreboard watching on Saturday.
No matter what, Friday’s matinee in Michigan will be the final regular season game for Marquette women’s lacrosse in 2025. The question is whether or not there will be more lacrosse after that. The problem is that Marquette is no longer in control of that answer.
Marquette fell short on a rally against Georgetown this past weekend, and as such, they wrapped up Big East play with a mark of 3-3. That has the Golden Eagles sitting in fifth place in the conference while the top four teams qualify for the Big East tournament. That sounds bad, but Marquette’s non-Butler/Xavier victory (those two teams are 0-5 pending a head-to-head finale) this season came against UConn. The Huskies are 3-2 heading into their final regular season game against that Hoyas team that MU just lost to. If Georgetown prevails on Saturday, Marquette will finish with the same record as UConn, and by way of head-to-head tiebreaker, they will get the fourth and final spot in the conference tournament.
If UConn beats Georgetown, Marquette is eliminated. Denver, Villanova, and Georgetown are all 4-1 going into Saturday’s final match day in conference action, so the regular season title is on the line, especially in the VU/DU game. However, none of them can fall into a tie with the Golden Eagles, so all that matters is whether UConn wins or loses.
If UConn loses, Marquette’s season continues.
If UConn wins, Marquette’s season is over.
It’s that simple at this point. With just six games (and honestly, only 4 given the Butler/Xavier situation) deciding your postseason fate, you can’t afford to whiff on roughly six quarters of play like Marquette did between the end of the Denver game, the start of the Villanova game, and the middle of the Georgetown game. Everything about the general trajectory of the programs involved said that Marquette was going to have to go 2-2 in the non-BU/XU games to lock themselves into the tournament….. and instead, they went 1-3 and are now waiting to see what happens.
I wonder if this means that Eastern Michigan is about to be on the business end of some frustrations?
Game #16: at Eastern Michigan Eagles (8-7, 4-2 MAC)
Date: Friday, April 25, 2025
Time: 11am Central
Location: Scicluna Field, Ypsilanti, Michigan
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stat Broadcast
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteWLax
Bluesky Updates: @AnonymousEagle
Marquette is 2-0 all time against Eastern Michigan. Both contests have come in the last two years as that’s when the Eagles started their program. MU has allowed just five goals in both games, including last year’s 14-5 win in Milwaukee.
Eastern Michigan is playing for the program’s first ever winning season on Friday. They started things off with a 2-14 mark in their inaugural season, and then went 7-9 last spring after falling in the MAC tournament semifinals. With a 4-2 mark in conference play, the Eagles have locked in a conference tournament berth already, but a win over Marquette would mean that they guarantee a winning record no matter what happens in their postseason game.
Marquette and Eastern Michigan actually have several opponents in common this season. EMU went 2-3 against Butler, Cincinnati, Central Michigan, Michigan, and Detroit Mercy, while the Golden Eagles are 4-1 against the same group. Michigan is the lone loss that the two share, with the Golden Eagles falling 22-5 and the Adjectiveless Eagles taking a 17-5 defeat.
EMU comes into this game with wins in their last two games and in three of their last four as well. They shut out Akron in the fourth quarter to secure a 16-12 victory in their MAC regular season finale behind an eight point day from Tracy Grollman, who finished with five goals and three assists.
While Grollman is on a hot streak with 14 points in EMU’s last two games, she’s not their leading scorer. That’s Mackenzie Blackwell, who has put up 54 goals and 5 assists this year. No one else on the team has more than 25 goals this season, and no one has more than 40 points, so closing down Blackwell will be critical. She has nearly twice as many shots as anyone else, so MU will put the Eagles into a real pickle if the Maryland native isn’t contributing. Grollman is one of three EMU players with at least 10 assists on the season, and Avery Schwab is the leader in that department with 14.
Maddie Porter has played all but 15 minutes at goalie for Eastern Michigan this season. She’s doing a heck of a job defending her cage, coming up with the save on precisely half of the shots on goal. That ranks Porter in the top 10 in the country in save percentage, so it’s definitely not her fault that Lacrosse Reference has the Eagles at #59 in the country in defensive efficiency. EMU gives up just as many shots per game as they take themselves, probably because they’re very bad at turnovers on the offensive end, so Marquette has to take advantage of their miscues.