Marquette’s busy start to the season continues this weekend, when it hosts Gonzaga and Oregon State as part of the annual Panther Invitational.
The home opener Friday against Gonzaga will be the Bulldogs’ second game of the season. The team had a difficult time with Washington, ranked fourth in this week’s coach’s poll, falling 4-0. Gonzaga will be looking to get out of the doghouse with a victory this weekend.
Marquette has a definite advantage in experience in the Gonzaga match. Three freshmen started last weekend for the Bulldogs, and six total freshmen made it onto the pitch.
“We’re experienced,” coach Louis Bennett said. “Gonzaga is going to be a very good team. They’re going to be feisty, they have some youthfulness to them and they’re on the large side. There will be some contrasting styles.”
Sunday’s opponent, Oregon State, took part in the Nike Portland Invite last weekend. The Beavers won both their matches, a 3-1 victory against Evansville Friday and a 1-0 victory against Central Florida Sunday.
The Marquette coaching staff will be able to watch Oregon State’s match against Wisconsin-Milwaukee in person Friday, since they are both involved in the same tournament. It is one of the few situations where live scouting is allowed.
The games follow last weekend’s pair of matches at the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic. Marquette lost games to Notre Dame and Indiana, each by one goal. Marquette dropped out of the top 25 in the coach’s poll and to No. 22 in the Soccer America polls after the results last weekend.
“This is the thing about rankings,” Bennett said. “When we’re in them, that’s great, when we’re not in them, that’s great. The day that I can put a shirt on the rankings and tell them to go out and either score goals, defend our goal, or stop a penalty, I’ll be really concerned about rankings.”
The Golden Eagles are trying to move past the first weekend’s games and look forward to the rest of the season.
“We’re trying to put that behind us,” said redshirt junior David Selvaggi, who sat out last season after transferring from DePaul. “We’re just preparing for the upcoming games.”
Despite having the Oregon State game looming in the background, Bennett made it clear the team is moving forward with the mindset of one game at a time. The quick turnaround should not affect the game plan drastically.
“Basically within our team structure we just fine-tune,” Bennett said. “We’re always going to play basically the same way. We’ll just fine-tune a few things to focus on the pluses and minuses of the team we’re playing.”
The team will not focus on Oregon State until the final whistle sounds against Gonzaga.
“As soon as the Gonzaga game ends … we’ll start our tactical preparations for our next game,” Bennett said.
Despite facing two games in a row for the second straight weekend, this go around should be less hectic with the games being held at Valley Fields.
“We get our own beds,” Selvaggi said. “It’s pretty nice when we get to stay here.”
Marquette faced injury troubles in the first weekend, but one unnamed player will be returning for this week. Luis Trude, the senior transfer from Brazil, still has one more week before he’s eligible to play.
Off the pitch, senior goalkeeper Charlie Lyon also received an honor this week. He was one of 30 seniors across the country to be named to the Senior CLASS Award, given to the player that best exemplifies achievements in community, classroom, character and competition. Lyon was the only soccer player to receive the Big East Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Award last season.
The Golden Eagles’ weekend kicks off with the Gonzaga match Friday at 5 p.m. and the Oregon State game starts at noon Sunday.
