No doubt about who won this one, y’all
Marquette women’s soccer moved to 3-3-0 on the year on Sunday with a 3-0 victory over St. Thomas. The Golden Eagles scored twice in the first half, just barely, and once very late to get the shutout win.
Maggie Starker hit the net for her second collegiate goal in the 36th minute as she headed home a pass from fellow freshman Kate Gibson for what would turn into MU’s game winning goal. Rachel Johnson made it 2-0 right before the half, and I mean that nearly literally as the goal is officially credited at exactly 45:00. That makes it a buzzer beater off a free kick.
This is where I would like to drop in a video clip of said goal because I know I saw it in the ol’ Twitter feed at some point and now I don’t know how or why. It’s not on the official Marquette women’s soccer Twitter because the broadcast was being handled by MUTV, and so it appears that the athletic department didn’t actually have immediate capture ability on it. That’s too bad.
Shots were 8-2 at the break, so you can argue that it was a well deserved lead for the Golden Eagles. Those same shot totals tilted in favor of St. Thomas in the second half as the Tommies outshot Marquette 7-4 as the Golden Eagles increasingly lost interest in shooting and focused on protecting their lead. We can even argue that MU’s defense did a good job into forcing UST into bad shots since Mikki Easter only had to make one second half save to keep the clean sheet. That one came in the 55th minute, although Easter had to stay on her toes with three shots in the final five minutes and two in the final 90 seconds.
Still, even if Easter had let one of those in, it wouldn’t have been the worst thing ever. Alexa Maletis scored her first goal of the season off an assist from Kylie Sprecher to make it a 3-0 game and provide that extra layer of insurance that everyone — everyone except St. Thomas, I guess — loves so much.
Up Next: One final non-conference tune-up before Big East play begins! North Dakota State comes to Milwaukee this coming Friday night with first kick on FloFC set for 7pm Central. The Bison are currently 0-5-1 after losing a 2-0 match to Creighton back on Thursday night.