Technically, the home team won yet again at Valley Fields on Friday night.
However, because they held the lower seed, the Golden Eagles found themselves donning their blue "away" jerseys, sitting on the "away" bench and losing to the "home" Notre Dame Fighting Irish 3-0 in the Big East Conference tournament soccer semifinals.
The Golden Eagles found out the hard way what teams traveling to Milwaukee have known all season long — Valley Fields is not kind to visitors.
For the first 30 minutes of play, both teams played a very physical, back-and-forth style of play.
"We were definitely more controlled at the beginning of the game this time," said senior defender Heather Goranson. "We knew what we were going up against."
Unfortunately for the Golden Eagles, what they were going up against was a very talented bunch of Fighting Irish.
In the 32nd minute, Notre Dame midfielder Jen Buczkowski worked around freshman defender Katie Kelly and fed the ball to Irish forward Katie Thorlakson on the left side of the Marquette box.
Thorlakson, the 2005 Big East offensive player of the year, fired a shot that curled just inside the far post, beyond the reach of sophomore goalkeeper Laura Boyer.
"I don't know if we realized the threat of the shot that could be there," said head coach Markus Roeders. "The problem that you have facing a team like (Notre Dame) is once you've fallen behind, the hill that you have to climb keeps getting bigger and bigger."
The hill got a little steeper for the Golden Eagles in the second half when Buczkowski scored on a near-post header from forward Kerri Hanks' corner kick.
The third goal came in the 70th minute off the foot of Hanks, who took advantage of a non-call from the head referee.
Leading up to the goal, Notre Dame midfielder Candace Chapman had taken the ball deep into Marquette territory where she met a barrage of Golden Eagle defenders. Chapman fell down, the sideline official raised his flag signaling a foul, players from both teams stopped moving but no whistle was blown.
"The linesman called a foul, and the ref said he disagreed with it, so he didn't call it," Goranson said. "But we need to play to the whistle. We can't just stop when the flag goes up."
Irish midfielder Annie Schefter took the loose ball and crossed it to Hanks, who volleyed it past Boyer.
Despite what the final score may indicate, this was not a one-sided affair.
The difference was that the Golden Eagles just could not find the same open shots they did on Sept. 30, when they beat Notre Dame 4-1.
In the second meeting, Marquette managed only one shot on goal and never attempted a corner kick.
"Everyone played hard on defense, but offensively, we couldn't get anything started," said junior forward Meghan Connelly. "We just have to learn that, although we beat a team once, it doesn't dictate what's going to happen in the next game."
Strong defensive effort mixed with weak offensive production would not be enough on a night when the Golden Eagles weren't even the home team in their own stadium.
Leave it to a heartsick goalie to put the match into perspective and provide some hope for her squad.
"We've been humble all season, but this is a little humbling. This is kind of our first gut feeling that this could have been it if this was the (NCAA) tournament," Boyer said. "We just need to focus on what we do best, and that's fighting back."