The women's soccer team concluded its regular season Sunday with a pair of victories, a program-best .868 winning percentage (16-2-1, 9-2-0) and a second-place finish in Division A of the Big East.

Heading into conference tournament play next week, the most important achievement, however, may be the team's 8-0-0 home record. Marquette will host Louisville (11-7-0, 6-5-0) next weekend in a quarterfinal match, and the semi-finals and championship will be held at Valley Fields the following weekend.

Talk about controlling your own destiny.

The St. John's "coach said that he heard that it was hard to win here, and that's the message we want to be sending out," said senior midfielder Julie Thompson. "We don't want teams coming in here and thinking they can beat us at home."

It took the Golden Eagles 45 minutes of uninspired soccer to send the message Friday against Syracuse (4-11-4, 3-5-3) before they rallied for a 2-1 overtime win. A comfortable 3-0 victory over St. John's (6-10-3, 2-7-2) on Sunday assured the Marquette seniors that they would play at least one more home game the following weekend.

The team hopes to display a little more urgency next weekend's quarterfinal than it did in the first half of Friday night's game.

"I don't know if maybe our emotions were a little bit too high, and we just tightened up a little bit from having senior night," said head coach Markus Roeders. "We just didn't settle down, we didn't have any sort of rhythm… Maybe their goal kind of woke us up a bit."

Molly McManus gave the Orange a lead in the 37th minute when she pounced on a loose ball that had pin-balled between players after a corner kick.

"The team was very quiet during halftime," Roeders said. "We just needed to settle down. We knew we had plenty of time, and I think the beginning of the second half set the tone for the rest of the game."

Thompson's 25-yard shot rattled the crossbar midway through the second half, and minutes later sophomore forward Christy Zwolski forced a terrific near-post save from Syracuse goalkeeper Emily Kowalczyk.

Junior forward Lauren Weber, who totaled three goals over the weekend, tied the game in the 71st minute when she settled a cross from senior midfielder Lindsay Michuda and scored from 10 yards out.

Then the game entered overtime. No problem.

Senior defender Sarah Uyenishi scored her second match-winning overtime goal of the season — the team's fifth win in six overtime games — after Kowalczyk parried a shot from freshman defender Katie Kelly and the rebound fell to the senior's foot.

The desire to stay at Valley Fields triggered a better performance on a cold and wet Sunday afternoon against St. John's. Weber found the bottom corner of the net from 20 yards in the 22nd minute, and Marquette created numerous scoring chances in the second half.

"We wear teams as the game goes on because we can bring players off the bench with a lot of energy, and they don't drop the level of play at all," Weber said.

Julia Egasti may have even raised the level of play in the second half. The sophomore midfielder, who broke free on the right flank on several occasions, assisted on the second goal in the 64th minute when Thompson met her cross with a half-volley finish.

Weber added her second goal of the game four minutes later when she knocked in a rebound after St. John's goalkeeper Rebecca Capinera flapped at a Marquette free kick.

"You sit back a little bit and reflect on the regular season maybe for a day or so and say, 'Wow, what a terrific accomplishment,' and wrap that up," Roeders said. "And now you look ahead."

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on October 25, 2005.