For the second time in many weeks, Marquette women’s soccer kicked off its weekend with a 1-1 draw in double overtime.
The Golden Eagles came from behind once again, scoring a goal with less than two minutes remaining in regulation. Last Thursday, Marquette scored a second half equalizer to earn a point against then No. 22 Santa Clara.
A draw is certainly better than a loss, but head coach Markus Roeders wasn’t satisfied with the result.
“There’s definitely disappointment within our team,” Roeders said.
For the sixth time in seven games, Marquette gave up the first goal of the game. Just one minute into the second half Maria Stephans put Anna Smalley in behind the Marquette defense, where she was able to slide it past keeper Maddy Henry to give UWM a 1-0 lead.
About 20 minutes later Marquette found their way into the game, dominating the last 25 minutes of play. Opportunity after opportunity came, but they couldn’t find the back of the net.
With less than two minutes to play and a loss looking inevitable, Madison Dunker launched a ball into the Panther defensive zone, which fell to the feet of Molly Pfeiffer. The redshirt junior made no mistake, spinning, and striking the ball into the opposite corner of the net for the equalizer.
Pfeiffer made sure to put that chance home, knowing there likely wouldn’t be another opportunity to extend the game. There was only one thing on her mind in the moment.
“Just put it in the back of the net,” Pfeiffer said.
Hope was running out, but Marquette was finally able to get possession in dangerous position.
“(It’s) something you try to learn and teach as a team, that until literally ever second has ticked off the clock, you’ve still got an opportunity,” Roeders said.
Pfeiffer’s goal wasn’t Marquette’s only opportunity to beat Milwaukee keeper Mallory Geurts, but until then the Golden Eagles just seemed slightly off. The first half was rather uneventful, but in the seventh minute Carrie Madden, who was dangerous all night, missed the net by just a few feet with a header from a Caroline Fink cross.
Things started to heat up in the 65th minute, when Marquette began a series of three threatening corner kicks. Morgan Proffitt was a menacing presence in the box every time her team had a corner.
Madden generated more chances than anyone else late in the game. Her constant cuts and crosses into the box provided her team plenty of opportunities to knot it up.
When the openings are there but the goals aren’t coming, it can be a challenge for a team mentally.
“It definitely wears down and you definitely get to a point where you just start thinking, ‘Is this just not our night?’ – ‘Is one going to come?’ That kind of thing. That’s where mentally you just have to keep believing that one’s going to go in,” Pfeiffer said.
Hailey VanDerLeest put in a cross just a minute after Pfeiffer’s equalizer that would have beaten the UWM defense, but it just clipped the side netting.
The Golden Eagles looked like they could win it with a pair of corner kicks early in the first overtime and again on a shot from Pfeiffer in the second session.
Liz Bartels nearly mustered even more drama with a shot from the top of the box with 20 seconds left in the contest, but it flew just wide.
Despite Marquette’s offensive output in the later parts of the game, Roeders felt there was more in it for his team.
“When you look at the totality of 90 minutes or 110 minutes, I think we definitely left part of the game on the field where we didn’t play particularly well, “ Roeders said.
For the second year in a row, Marquette and UWM finished deadlocked at 1-1.
Marquette (2-3-2) takes on Northwestern (6-0-0) in Evanston, Illinois on Sunday evening at 5 p.m. The Wildcats have earned shutouts in five of their six contests so far.
