Marquette women’s soccer coach Markus Roeders said his team’s main goal for the spring was to finish the season undefeated. That’s exactly what his team did in its doubleheader finale Saturday at Valley Fields.
In the opener against the Wildcats, junior forward Lindsey Page put Marquette on the board early, scoring in the first minute. Freshman midfielder Rachel Brown added two goals of her own in the second half along with scores by sophomore midfielder Ally Miller and junior forward Rachael Sloan to hand Northwestern its first loss of the spring.
Roeders was pleased with the offensive outburst in the second half because of what it said about the offense.
“We wish we could have split the goals up, three and two, for the second game, but scoring five is nice,” he said. “And just having the confidence and thought that we can (score five goals) is important.”
That second match against DePaul had much more of a regular season feel to it, with neither team allowing many scoring chances. Marquette came closest, keeping the ball in DePaul territory for the final minutes before running out of time to steal a victory.
Both teams were chippy at times, but Roeders said that is part of the territory that comes with Big East soccer.
“The rules are always a little bit different there and the competitiveness is a little different, but we really pushed hard to score that goal (at the end),” Roeders said.
DePaul was the second Big East opponent Marquette has faced. The other was the 2010 NCAA champion Notre Dame Fighting Irish on April 20. Marquette won that game, 3-2.
Despite the goal-fest against Northwestern, it was Marquette’s defense that came through in a big way for much of the afternoon. Northwestern and DePaul each had two or fewer scoring opportunities than Marquette.
“We have always been a very sound defensive team and our goal every game is to get a shutout,” Roeders said. “We pride ourselves on that, and it’s good to get them here. In the beginning of the season, we didn’t quite have that but we’ve done better here at the end.”
Page said that being unable to finish against DePaul wasn’t all bad, as the team now has more motivation to move forward as it heads into the fall season.
Junior defender Kerry McBride said the team was able to improve on playing together this spring, which led to the positive game results.
“We’re a pretty young team and this spring has been about getting to know each other,” she said. “And just people who haven’t played getting more time and getting a feel for each other has been important.”
Players will now go their own way for the summer — with some playing for elite teams in their age groups — to continue training before they come back for the much-anticipated fall season.
For now, the Golden Eagles leave the spring season with a sense of accomplishment that they hope will carry over into the regular season.
“Going undefeated is a testament to the hard work we’ve put in and how talented we are,” Roeders said. “We have a short window to get ready, but this is a fun and exciting group. We have set a foundation going into the fall.”
