Another road trip is in the books for the Marquette women’s lacrosse team, and yet another winless weekend, as Cincinnati and Louisville extended the Golden Eagles’ losing streak to eight.
Marquette, now 2-10 on the season, has struggled since its 2-2 start. The team’s problems stem from offensive struggles and the inability to gain possession.
The weekend opened with a solid performance on the stat sheet, but the result favored the established Cincinnati team.
Jumping out to an early 2-1 lead, Marquette was in the driver’s seat, but the Bearcats responded with a 6-0 run in the final 10:54 to take a 7-2 lead into the break.
In the second half, Cincinnati continued piling on goals, increasing its run to 10-0 before freshman midfielder Kenzie Brown finally ended a 34:19 scoring drought. The Golden Eagles tacked on two more goals before the final whistle but dropped the contest 14-5.
Despite the lopsided score, the stats were fairly equal. The Bearcats had the edge in most categories, but not by much. The 13-7 save differential in favor of Cincinnati, and Marquette’s 1-for-6 free-position shot conversion stood out as key statistics. The failure to convert on the opportunities, especially in the second half, led to their downfall.
“I think we were in it, you know, throughout the whole game,” coach Meredith Black said. “We’re still young, we make inexperienced mistakes, and I think it’s hard for us to recover from those mistakes at this point in time. So we just need to try to limit the mistakes and be able to recover out of those a little bit better.”
After a short rest, the team traveled south to take on Louisville Sunday morning.
This was the squad’s roughest performance of the season, as it was completely dominated by the Cardinals for the entire 60 minutes. Louisville posted the first 14 shots of the game and scored 10 goals before Marquette even took a shot. When they finally got a shot off, senior attacker Jacqueline Dubois scored her first of the season on a free-position shot that put the Golden Eagles on the board. That was the team’s only goal of the half, and it trailed 14-1 at the intermission.
The second half saw much of the same, as the Cardinals continued their attack and once again held the Golden Eagles to a single goal while tallying seven themselves as they cruised to a 21-2 victory.
Possession, as it has been many times this season, was an issue against Louisville. The team could not seem to click on offense or even keep possession.
“We didn’t come out with enough energy, and it just hurt us, and they got a nice little lead on us and we have trouble – we really have trouble – coming out of it,” Black said. “I told the team after the game that we just need to keep our feet moving, we’ve got to keep going and can’t play scared, and we can’t move our feet when the opponent comes at us.”
The team will put the losses behind it as it prepares to face No. 7 Georgetown Friday and No. 20 Loyola Sunday. Both games will be played at Valley Fields.