The Marquette women’s lacrosse schedule was released Tuesday, and it features some intriguing matchups for the Golden Eagles come springtime.

Marquette will open its season Feb. 15 at Winthrop in Rock Hill, S.C. and will host its first regular season home game Feb. 23 against Duquesne.

Marquette will enjoy a warm climate over spring break when they travel to the Golden State for a three-game road trip. Games against Saint Mary’s, San Diego State and Southern California will give the Golden Eagles some useful experience before its first Big East match, scheduled for March 22 at home against Villanova.

This fall, Marquette got a taste of incredibly strong teams, like two-time defending champions Northwestern, and some weaker squads, like Grand Valley State. Although the team won’t be a full-time Big East member until 2014, coach Meredith Black wanted to schedule several matches against future Big East foes to have her team experience what competition will be like the following year.

It’ll be interesting to see how Marquette does in those Big East matches. If it can win even a few games, people will have reason to be incredibly optimistic for 2014 because this year’s team is so young. Many forget that out of the 35 players on the current roster, 29 are freshmen. A few wins here and there with a relatively inexperienced team can mean high expectations once a full year is under its belt.

The Golden Eagles have show glimmers of fierce attacking and suffocating defense, but the question that lacrosse fans will have poking them in the back is can they do that consistently against far more experienced opponents?

An interesting match will be Marquette’s regular season finale April 27 at Notre Dame. Black played for the Irish and had an assistant coaching stint there from 2008-10. Marquette visited the Irish in a scrimmage last month and struggled mightily on the offensive end, but practices and other scrimmages have helped in that regard.

To view the entire schedule, click here.