When the Golden Eagles took the pitch earlier this month against Illinois State, it appeared as though they could do no wrong. After outlasting Boston University and Rhode Island on the road, the team had its first national ranking since 2014 and its best start to the season (7-1) in six years.
Even after tying Illinois State, the team walked to its locker room at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for its match with the Panthers confident that they’d take down their crosstown rival.
Fast forward to present day, and the Golden Eagles’ flight to national attention has faced more turbulence than initially anticipated. Since their electric 7-1 start, the Golden Eagles have gone 0-2-1 and had its first regular season loss to an unranked team in almost a year.
“We’ve seen a couple teams now who are really sitting in and waiting on you to play,” Roeders said. “Our mistakes played a little bit into how they like to play.”
This was particularly the case in the team’s latest setback, a 3-0 loss at Butler Sunday.
“(Sunday) was a disappointing result,” Roeders said. “(Butler) kind of played in a defensive shell right from the beginning, so we had to dictate the buildup of our back and break them down, which we knew wasn’t going to be easy.”
Butler striker Paige Monaghan gave a once-stout Marquette defensive front fits, putting up as many shots on goal as the entire Marquette offense.
“She’s a very high-quality player,” Roeders said of Monaghan. “She’s very opportunistic, she has a great nose for goal and she knows how to put herself in the right spots.”
Two of Monaghan’s three shots on goal went past sophomore goalkeeper Maddy Henry.
“The first one was a great shot outside the 18, upper 90 … Maddy (Henry) almost got her fingertips on it but couldn’t save it in the end,” Roeders said. “The goals in the second half were really a couple miscues on our part defensively.”
After entering play with a stellar 87 percent save percentage, Henry stopped only half the shots that came her way.
While facing Butler, a team that has already tied or defeated two ranked teams on the road, lessens the blow of the 3-0 defeat, Marquette will not have much margin for error in the rest of the nine-game BIG EAST slate.
“Our loss is to one of the teams that ultimately is going to end up do really well,” Roeders said. “We have to refocus and reset ourselves a little bit now and tighten things up all around.”
This is not Roeders’ first time dealing with a downturn. Last year, Marquette fell to unranked Creighton, who was ranked seventh in the preseason poll, but went on to win eight of its next nine games before falling to Georgetown in the BIG EAST Championship.
“Last year we started 0-1 at Creighton and then we went on a run and finished at the top of the league,” Roeders said. “So anything can happen. There are a lot of games to be played.”
