The Marquette women’s soccer team faces its toughest competition of the season when the team travels to Washington D.C. to battle Georgetown Sunday afternoon.
The Golden Eagles (7-5-2, 3-0-1) are riding a six-game winning streak into the game, and will face a Georgetown team that is undefeated at home this season. Marquette is 0-2-2 on the road, and can benefit from having a full week to prepare for the match. Getting its first road victory against the Hoyas would be another big step forward for the team.
Georgetown is fortunate to have two of the top five scorers in the conference. Senior Daphne Corboz leads the Big East with 26 points, and senior Vanessa Skrumbis is tied for fourth with 17. However, after those two, Georgetown’s scoring drops off, as the third-highest scorer on the team is sophomore Grace Damaska with nine.
Even with the dynamic Corboz and Skrumbis leading the charge for the Hoyas, coach Markus Roeders said it is important to stay focused on what Marquette can do.
“Our focus really has to be more on us,” Roeders said. “How we can solidify everything that we’re doing from the standpoint of our offensive play, our defensive play, our set plays, our restarts, all those kinds of things. We just got to fine tune.”
Because of how often Georgetown can score, the Golden Eagles will rely heavily on junior goalkeeper Amanda Engel. Engel quietly has an impressive 0.50 goals against average and notched four shutouts during the team’s unbeaten streak. Engel averaged just more than three saves per game during that stretch. Against an offense like the Hoyas, Engel will see a lot of shots, but if her recent play is any indicator, she should have no problem keeping them out of the net.
Roeders said Engel stepped up for the team during the stretch.
“She’s shown once again she’s one of the best in the league,” Roeders said. “We continue to rely on her and hopefully she can make the saves she can make.”
Marquette’s leading scorer is senior Mary Luba with 12 points, while sophomore Liz Bartels has 10. Both teams are possession-heavy squads, which means the Golden Eagles will have to limit turnovers, especially in the attacking zone.
Roeders said possession is a major part of both teams’ game plans, which makes it an intriguing matchup.
“It’s a great matchup because they love to possess and we love to do the same thing,” Roeders said.
When the Golden Eagles do get their quality scoring chances, they will face an equally solid goalkeeper in Emma Newins. Newins also notched four shutouts in her last six games, but has a slightly higher goals against average. Newins also makes 3.64 saves per game, compared to Engel’s 3.57 saves. The match could be decided by which goaltender can make the crucial saves.
Roeders said Engel and the rest of the defense stood strong so far in Big East play, and the team will need their defense to be reliable against Georgetown.
“We can’t ask ourselves to score four, five goals every game, that’s just not going to happen,” Roeders said. “So we have to be able to squeak out these 1-0 wins.”
“Sunday’s a big one,” Roeders said. “We’re going to be on the road, we know how difficult they are … especially at their place.”
The Golden Eagles will kickoff against the Hoyas at 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon.
