Cold blood, moxie, grit, or guts: Whatever you want to call it, No. 17/16 Marquette men’s lacrosse has it.
Sophomore attackman Kyran Clarke scored with 13 seconds left to complete Marquette’s five goal run in the fourth quarter to make it 10-9. Ohio State tested sophomore goalkeeper Jimmy Danaher one last time, but he blocked the point-blank shot from Carter Brown with one second left to seal the victory.
“We were just doing what we did the whole game,” Clarke said. “They were giving us the zone look… There weren’t any specific plays run. We had a good feel We had a good feel of what we were doing out there so we decided to stick to the game plan.”
“Stephen Brundage did a great job setting up his offense and telling the guys to be patient,” coach Joe Amplo told GoMarquette.com. “We probably could of shot earlier. Credit to those guys for buying into what he’s teaching and believing in the system.”
The game was the fourth out of the team’s five games decided by one goal, and the third game in which the Golden Eagles had to come back from at least a four goal deficit.
“You’re going to learn how to play in those situations,” Graduate student attackman Jordan Greenfield said. “A lot of the older guys have done a good job at calming the younger guys down when we’re down at half or down after the first quarter.”
Greenfield had three goals and two assists, redshirt junior midfielder Kyle Whitlow had two goals and an assist, and Clarke had two goals, including the cherry on top of an unexplainable victory for Marquette.
The stats are incredibly one-sided towards the Buckeyes, who held onto the ball for almost the entirety of the first half. The Golden Eagles were outshout 26 to nine in the first half. Ohio State won all but three face-offs. Yet, Marquette capitalized on the few offensive chances they received.
Ohio State pulled away early, getting out to a 5-1 lead early in the second quarter. Marquette struggled getting to missed Buckeye shots, allowing Ohio State to stay in the Golden Eagles defensive end for minutes at a time. Danaher was peppered with shots, making nine saves as opposed to Ohio State redshirt sophomore Tom Carey’s one in the first half.
The Golden Eagles started gaining momentum in the second quarter. The Golden Eagles scored three in a row, two from Greenfield and one from Gately to get back into the game. The Golden Eagles closed the gap to 6-5 at the half.
The second half was a tale of two quarters, the third owned by Ohio State and the fourth by Marquette. The Golden Eagles were shutout in the third. The Buckeyes pushed their lead to four with three unanswered goals. The Golden Eagles would once again need to mount a comeback.
The offensive unit began chiseling away the lead, scoring three goals in the first six minutes of the quarter to make the score 9-8. It wouldn’t be until the final two minutes that Whitlow tied the game.
Despite getting dominated in the face-off x all-day, Marquette was able to get a timely victory from redshirt junior long-stick midfielder Tyler Gilligan. The Golden Eagles held out as long as possible, making sure there was little time on the clock if they scored the go-ahead goal or the Buckeyes forced a turnover.
With 13 seconds left sophomore midfielder Ryan McNamara found an open Clarke on the right side. His shot found the twine, giving the Golden Eagles their first and only lead in the game.
The victory pushes Marquette to 5-0, the last remaining undefeated team in the Big East conference. Three teams ahead of Marquette in the polls, No. 9/14 Army, No. 10/13 Harvard, No. 12/12 Johns Hopkins and No. 16/11 Penn all lost this week, which could allow the Golden Eagles to move up close to the top ten rankings. No. 18/18 Princeton, who defeated Johns Hopkins, could also be in play in tomorrow’s new rankings. The undefeated Tigers could jump the Golden Eagles due to their high-profile victory.
The Golden Eagles begin their week-long Spring Break trip down south Friday when they face the Jacksonville Dolphins. Two days later they’ll trek up to Georgia to meet the Mercer Bears. Jacksonville has only played two games, losing to Army and beating St. John’s. The Dolphins will host Michigan on Tuesday. Mercer has struggled out of the gate, dropping its first three games and allowing 15 or more goals each time.
