Photo by Doug Peters/[email protected]

The Marquette women’s soccer team, who hadn’t scored more than one goal in their previous four matches, righted the ship on Sunday in a 5-1 thrashing of Creighton.

“We’ve been knocking on the door and we had to have a breakout game at some point,” said head coach Markus Roeders.

After Creighton got on the board first in the 8^th minute, Marquette was slow to get going offensively. In the 38^th minute, a Creighton foul outside their own 18-yard box gave redshirt senior Jacie Jermier a set piece attempt, which she put right to redshirt junior Darian Powell to head into the net and equalize just before halftime.

Jermier’s day wasn’t close to over at that point. In the 59^th minute, she put a corner kick directly to the head of junior Morgan Proffitt to give the Golden Eagles a 2-1 advantage.

“She’s got that great left foot and swinger,” Proffitt said of her defensive cohort. “On the corner kicks I know normally where she’s going to play them. They’re a rope to my head so I’m just there to hit them in.”

In the 78^th minute, freshman Jamie Kutey was taken down in the box, resulting in a penalty kick. The sure-footed Jermier took the attempt and converted it past Creighton’s keeper. Just two minutes later, Jermier found the head of Proffitt again, this time on a cross into the box, for the fourth Marquette goal. Junior Ashley Handwork netted the fifth Marquette tally in the 85^th minute.

“We were all very hungry for goals and that hadn’t been coming, so it was finally nice to get this big win,” Jermier said.

Jermier finished the day with five points, giving her the team lead with nine points on the season. Proffitt’s two goals give her three on the season, tying Powell and redshirt sophomore Molly Pfeiffer for the team lead.

The 5-1 victory is an impressive statement to open the BIG EAST slate, especially against a Creighton side that came into the match with a record of 8-3.

“There are no games that are going to be gimmes,” Roeders said. “Nobody’s going to give you anything and you have to fight for everything,”

News and notes:

• Molly Pfeiffer, Erin Holland, Liz Bartels and Meegan Johnston watched the game in street clothes from the bleachers while serving a coach’s suspension for undisclosed disciplinary reasons. Roeders said he expects to have all four players back for Thursday’s match at Seton Hall.
• Freshman keeper Sloane Carlson got her second consecutive start in net for the Golden Eagles. After conceding the Creighton goal in the 8^th minute, she was pulled in favor of senior veteran Amanda Engel in the 12^th. “Amanda is still our leader and our goalkeeper and I don’t really think that’s going to change in the future,” Roeders said after the match.
• The five goals in the game matched Marquette’s total goal tally for the previous five games combined.