After a disappointing season-opening loss to University of Illinois-Chicago, Marquette has continued to find a way to win, and will enter their first Big East game of the season with a five-game winning streak.

The most recent of these wins, a 5-2 win over Southern Illinois Saturday, relied on quick starts from Marquette.

First, in doubles, the No. 3 tandem of Brett Binkley and Ricky Servoss gave Marquette the first win of the match by defeating the Salukis' Tomas Gonzalez and Bojan Ilievski, 8-5.

"It was nice to get the doubles win at No. 3 because it gave us a quick start," head coach Steve Rodecap said in a statement.

The win meant that when Marquette freshmen Trent Hagan and Stephen Shao won their No. 2 doubles match 8-6, the first point was clinched for the Golden Eagles and the Salukis' win in the No. 1 match did them no good.

The singles matches started off with the same type of bang. Senior Eigis Vedrickas, who had been part of the losing No. 1 duo in doubles, beat Southern Illinois' Rodrigo Lama 6-1, 7-5, giving a quick 2-0 lead to Marquette.

"Eigis did a good job of getting the victory and getting off the court quickly," Rodecap said. "It makes it easier on the other players and relaxes them when we get that early two-point lead."

That mental advantage was enough for Binkley to get a 6-4, 6-2 win. After losing the first set Shao fought back to beat Gonzalez 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-4. Greg Sirotek also fought from behind to win his fourth straight singles match 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-2.

The win on Saturday gave the Golden Eagles a 5-1 record to take into tonight's Big East match-up against former Conference USA foe DePaul.

After sweeping a double-header Feb. 11 over Chicago State and Western Illinois, Rodecap said the one loss of the season reminds them that they are vulnerable, and that they have to make sure to play their best in every match.

As for DePaul, it also opened their season against UIC. The Blue Demons had better success than Marquette against the Flames, beating them 4-3. Unlike the Golden Eagles, however, DePaul has lost six of their eight games since then, including being swept in three consecutive matches by Western Michigan, Wisconsin and Northwestern. Their struggles against Big Ten teams continued Sunday, when Iowa defeated them 6-1.

The last time Marquette and DePaul met was April 7, 2004, a 6-1 victory for the Blue Demons.