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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

Club sports year in review

Men’s Hockey

The Marquette men’s club hockey team finished its regular season in fifth place (8-11-1) in the Midwest American College Hockey Association. In order to qualify for the MACHA League Tournament the team needed to finish in the top four.

Sophomore goalie R.J. Bennett said the team had an overall good year, but it didn’t turn out the way everyone had hoped. The team split its season series with each of the top three teams in the MACHA: Purdue, Loyola and Illinois State.

In its last weekend of the regular season, Marquette was in a position to make the league tournament and beat Purdue on Friday, Feb. 14, 6-4, but it didn’t get the help it needed from other teams in the MACHA in order to make the league tournament.

The team will lose nine seniors from this season’s squad but returns 14 players including a freshman class that Bennett said was the strength of the team.

Bennett said freshman center Will Jurgensen and defensemen Anthony Fabris played really well this year and should be at the heart of a team, which will be led by freshmen and sophomores next season.

Men’s Volleyball

The Marquette men’s club volleyball team finished fifth (4-6) in the eight-team Wisconsin Volleyball Conference that contains the Division III National Volleyball Club Federation national champion Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Marquette also competed at nationals and finished 35th, which is what it was seeded heading into the tournament April 1.

Sophomore defensive specialist Jack Hughes said the team had high hopes for the season after it finished fifth at nationals last year but that this year’s team just couldn’t find the right recipe for success.

The team was led by six seniors but otherwise should return 15 players from this year’s team in the fall. Hughes hopes next year’s team will be a consistent squad that can be one of the top teams in the WVC and in the country.

Men’s Lacrosse

The Marquette men’s club lacrosse season did not end as well as captain Brian Cassidy had hoped. But the senior is still pleased with the improvement he saw in the team over the last four years.

Cassidy said the team had a lot of close losses that could have been wins, leaving the returning players optimistic.

The team recently lost in the semifinals of the Upper Midwest Lacrosse League Championship. But even getting to the playoffs was a great accomplishment for the team, Cassidy said. This season, the team went 5-11 and had a three-game winning streak at the tail end of the season, which Cassidy said was probably the highlight of the season. Even though Cassidy is graduating this year, he believes the team is heading in the right direction to make it all the way to the finals and possibly even win the championship.

Men’s Football

While the Marquette men’s club football team managed to win only one game on a forfeit this season, junior president Frank Gorham wasn’t disappointed with the season.

“We lost a lot of games in the last seconds,” Gorham said, “but I was happy with the overall competitiveness of the players.”

Gorham said that the team’s emphasis is on how it plays and not who it beats.

The strong bond the team formed in its grueling road schedule will be important for next year with 25 returning players. Gorham added that the game against Miami (Ohio), where the team got to play in Yager Stadium, was an amazing experience and was probably the highlight of the season.

Men’s Baseball

The club baseball team’s bid to clinch the Great Lakes Conference West title came up short this past weekend, when it lost two out of three games to Wisconsin.

The team finished the year 9-6, including a three game sweep of Northwestern, last season’s conference winner. Had the team swept Wisconsin it would have won the conference outright and advanced to the Great Lakes Regional tournament.

Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Wisconsin-Whitewater also play in the Great Lakes Conference West with Marquette, Wisconsin and Northwestern.

“We reached the last weekend of the season with a chance to win the conference, and that is all we can ask for,” sophomore second baseman Ian Yakob said. “We were in position but we fell short this year — the good news is that almost everyone is returning next season.”

Marquette’s offensive standout was junior third baseman Dan Riedel, who hit five home runs and led the team with a .469 batting average, 24 hits, 18 runs and 24 runs batted in.

Freshman Dan Walker led Marquette’s pitching staff with a record of 3-1 in five games, throwing three complete games along the way.

Curling

The Marquette curling team experienced many growing pains this season. The team lost many veteran members from a team last year that earned a silver medal at a regional tournament, followed by a bronze medal at the national tournament.

“It was definitely a growing year for us because we lost a lot of great curlers to graduation,” curler Kate Boland said. “It was a nice opportunity for some of us to get experience competing against a lot of really good teams.”

The team was unable to attend the regional tournament in Bowling Green, Ohio this year but was able to take part in the national tournament, which is held every year in Chicago.

Unlike last season when the team was placed in Division 2, the curlers were moved up to Division 1 and had a difficult time.

“Some of the curlers in Division 1 had a combined 60 years of experience between the four curlers, while we had like 19,” Boland said.

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