After losing its home opener by 15 on Friday, Marquette looked like a completely different team Sunday, defeating the Louisville Cardinals 15-12.
“It was just mentality, honestly. I think (against) Notre Dame, we came in playing scared,” senior captain Grace Gabriel said. “We just needed to realize that we’re good athletes, we’re a great team and we have a lot to offer. Today we played with a bunch of confidence and that was the game changer.”
Six different Marquette players — Gabriel, Megan Menzuber, Cate Soccodato, Lindsey Willcocks, Madison Kane and Shea Garcia — had goals in the first 17 minutes of the first half, which resulted in a 6-1 Marquette lead.
“That’s exactly what we want. We don’t want to ever have to depend on one player to (score),” Black said. “All that is is great ball movement from our attack and everybody going at full speed and that’s going to create openings for anybody.”
Louisville’s Tessa Chad recorded her team’s first goal at the 26:35 mark in the first half, but then the Cardinals didn’t score again until Brenna Shanahan’s goal nearly 13 minutes later.
The Golden Eagles quickly answered Shanahan’s goal with a Kane’s second goal of the day 44 seconds later, but then Louisville went on a 5-0 run to tie the game at 7-7. Ally Hall, Alex McNicholas, Chad and Shayla Scanlan all scored in the Cardinals’ 5-0 run.
“We went into a little bit of a lull in the first half and settled in a little bit too much,” Black said. “We just had to turn that back on. We get the aggressive mentality and we control the tempo and that’s all we did.”
Gabriel scored two goals off free-position attempts to give Marquette a 9-7 lead at the half. The Cardinals remained within a couple goals for the entire second half.
When Hall scored with 12:14 remaining, Louisville closed the deficit to 12-11 and was on a 3-0 run. Senior Charlotte McGuire stopped the Cardinals’ momentum with a goal to make it 13-11.
Junior goalie Julianna Horning had the save of the game at the 1:02 mark, and then Wilcox scored with five seconds remaining in the game to give the Golden Eagles the 15-12 victory. Horning finished with nine saves.
Louisville could not limit Gabriel, who finished with a game-high five goals.
“My teammates did a great job seeing me in the open slot,” Gabriel said. “We moved the ball really well so it was really easy to find those openings and I just happened to be (in) the right place at the right time.”
Gabriel led the Golden Eagles with five goals, 10 shots and eight of her team’s 17 draw controls. Willcocks and Kane tied for second in goals with three apiece.
Chad and Hall led the Cardinals with three goals.
Marquette (1-1) will head to University of Cincinnati for the team’s first road matchup Friday at 11 a.m.
“We want to use this as momentum,” Black said. “We’re just going to know our aggression to cage is what helped us win this game.”
