That the Marquette women’s soccer team has been dominating at home is well documented.
The Golden Eagles (12-2-0, 5-1-0 Big East) have a 16-game unbeaten streak at Valley Fields dating back to last season, including a perfect 8-0-0 mark this year.
If it were possible to nitpick with this team, the place to start would be its 2-2-0 road record heading into last weekend, with cross-divisional matches against Louisville and Cincinnati on the docket.
Consider those issues to be moot.
Following up a gritty 1-0 win at Louisville (5-5-3, 3-1-2 Big East) Friday night, the Golden Eagles blasted Cincinnati (5-5-4, 3-1-2 Big East) 4-0 Sunday afternoon to win their fourth straight match and improve to 23-10-5 all-time against Big East National Division foes.
“It was really important to play well this weekend because we are going to New York in two weeks, and with the West Virginia (loss), our coach didn’t want that to ever happen again,” sophomore midfielder Vanessa Legault-Cordisco said.
The two wins propelled Marquette into a tie for first place in the Big East American Division with West Virginia (9-4-0, 5-1-0 Big East), following the Mountaineers’ 4-1 setback at Villanova Sunday afternoon.
The Golden Eagles struck early Friday night, when sophomore midfielder Taylor Madigan’s fifth goal of the season in the fifth minute was the difference in the game and added to the Cardinals’ plight at home.
Before a 2-1 overtime win over South Florida on Sunday, Louisville hadn’t won a match at home this season.
Marquette only managed nine shots in the game, including just five on goal, but its stout defense led to a crucial win over a Cardinals’ team that beat Notre Dame earlier in the season.
“Both games were actually pretty similar in that they were battles,” senior forward Lindsey Page said. “The final score Sunday wasn’t necessarily indicative of how the game went.”
Sunday’s contest was close for the first half hour, but a goal from sophomore midfielder Cara Jacobson in the 34th minute paired with Legault-Cordisco’s first goal in a Marquette uniform seven minutes later let the team cruise to its 12th win of the season.
Page and sophomore midfielder Emily Jacobson added goals in the second half.
The shutout against Cincinnati was senior goalkeeper Natalie Kulla’s 38th of her career. Kulla trails Rutgers’ Erin Guthrie by six for the most shutouts all-time among Division I soccer.
“The pride and work ethic our squad has on covering the entire field defensively is huge,” coach Markus Roeders told GoMarquette.com. “Natalie (Kulla) and our backs deserved special mention because they are all very unselfish and recognize their play is super important to our team’s success.”
The wins set up key inter-divisional home matches with Providence (4-6-4, 2-4-0 Big East) and Connecticut (5-5-2, 2-2-2 Big East) Friday and Sunday, respectively.
Marquette’s two losses this season were against the respectable Florida State and West Virginia squads, who sport a combined home mark of 11-2.
