After a foul was called against Marquette, the Bears were able to try and finish the game on a free kick. Marquette goalkeeper junior Katie Bissen, who had three saves in the game, one in which she leapt over a Golden Bears player to snatch the ball from mid-air, deflected the kick. With a lot of action in front of the Marquette net, however, the Bears found an opportunity when Bissen was unable to get back in enough time to block a second shot from Bri Wiles that put the Bears up 1-0.
The California defense, which has allowed only five goals the entire season, made it hard for Marquette to score. The Golden Eagles hurried to catch up, their closest opportunity coming from freshman Alison Loughrin minutes later but was blocked.
In the 85th minute Califorinia scored again as Kassie Doubrava shot to the right corner of the net 10 yards out that rolled past Bissen who tried diving for it.
“They are nationally ranked for a reason,” Marquette coach Markus Roeders said. “We held them out for as long as we could. For us, it’s a matter of creating more opportunities.”
California went into the game expecting a challange.
“We walked out of here with a lot of respect for Marquette,” said California coach Kevin Boyd. “We wanted to go out and put ourselves in a challenging situation (before the regular PAC-10 season starts) and we found one here. ”
The Golden Eagles only had five shots and one shot on goal compared to California’s 10 shots and five shots on goal.
“We are playing better than we did three weeks ago but we’re not seeing the rewards for it,” Roeders said. “It’s hard to swallow.”
Associate coach Frank Pelaez was impressed with the team’s performance despite the loss. “They played our style of game, they just played it a little bit better,” Pelaez said. “I’m proud of how young we are and was still doing this well against a team like this.”
Marquette is now 5-6-1 and will return to conference play Thursday when they face rival Cincinnati on the road at 7p.m.
“We have to play a little catch up in the conference race now,” Roeders said.