Conference play has been defined by inches for Marquette women’s soccer.
If sophomore forward, Jocelyn Leigh’s hand is inches in any other direction during Saturday night’s game in Omaha, there’s no handball, Creighton doesn’t get a penalty kick, the game isn’t tied and Marquette wins 1-0. But no — another draw, which continued a winless streak that extended back to August and gave the Golden Eagles their second tie in a row.
Tonight, in Marquette’s game against St. John’s, it looked like that trend could continue.
Six minutes in, a misplaced foot from sophomore forward Megan Murray deflected a shot into the air, which put the ball past sophomore keeper Hailey Wade to make the score 1-0 in favor of the Johnnies. Murray’s foot, inches in any other direction, would have given Wade the save.
But, especially at home, the Golden Eagles didn’t want inches to tell the story.
Marquette (5-3-3, 1-0-2) scored three goals over St. John’s after the early score to win at home for the first time in since Aug. 17 and grab its first win in conference play. Now, the Golden Eagles are tied for third with Butler in the Big East; the top six teams in the conference will make the conference tournament.
“More importantly than (winning) at Valley, we get our first Big East win of this season,” Marquette head coach Chris Allen said. “I was really proud of the resiliency that we showed. Going down a goal, it didn’t change the mentality, it didn’t change the intensity level.”
After St. John’s early goal, the Golden Eagles took possession and kept the ball on the Red Storm’s half of the field for a majority of the opening period. The Johnnies wouldn’t get a shot attempt for 27 minutes.
“After being down a goal everybody got hungry,” junior midfielder Capri Oliviero said. “We really needed to come back. This was a big game for us, and we really needed to win.”
During that time, Marquette was able tally nine shots. In the 23rd minute, a free kick from just past half field was gathered inside the box and punched in by senior forward Josie Bieda to tie the game.
But the Golden Eagles didn’t stop there. A bad aftertaste of ties was in their mouth and they wanted a palate cleanser.
“We released our outside backs,” Allen said. “We wanted to put numbers in and around the box to create a little bit of chaos.”
First year defender Claire Shea and Oliviero would score goals of their own in the 37th and 49th minute respectively. It was Oliviero’s career first. Marquette held constant possession and continued to find an abundance of goal opportunities.
This has been an issue for St. John’s all season with opponents getting an average of 13.9 shots per game.
By the horn, the Golden Eagles had 24 shots compared to St. John’s four — by far the largest shot difference for the Red Storm in Big East play (the biggest before tonight was 12).
Marquette will welcome DePaul to Valley Fields on Saturday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. CST. As with all Big East games this season, the game will be broadcasted on ESPN+.
This recap was written by Benjamin Hanson. He can be reached at benjamin.hanson@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @benhansonMU.