Coming off two straight 1-0 overtime wins to start the season, Marquette (3-0, 0-0 BIG EAST) hosted the St. Louis Billikens (2-1, 0-0 A-10) Saturday afternoon and came away with another 1-0 win in overtime.
If you saw the Golden Eagles first two matches where they scored game-winning goals in overtime, this game played out very similarly.
No goals were scored by either team in regulation for the third straight game for MU. It once again proved to be a tightly contest battle throughout.
At the start of the game, junior forward Zyan Andrade got a good look and got a shot on goal, but besides that, Marquette had just two shots on goal.
It was a similar story for St. Louis, who had five total shots on goal in the first half.
In the second half, it was more of the same for both teams. There were just five total shots, three for St. Louis and two for Marquette.
A big story of this game was the penalties and yellow cards. St. Louis had 17 fouls compared to Marquette’s 16.
The Golden Eagles had four players get yellow cards and St. Louis had two, but redshirt senior Keaton Schieffer got two yellow cards and was ejected after arguing with the referee. This left the Billikens at a player disadvantage for the final seven minutes of the second half and in overtime.
When the second half ended, overtime became more intensified, and almost continued to remain scoreless until Andrade ended the game with a laser into the bottom left corner of the goal with just eight seconds remaining on the clock.
“We knew we had a man up so we were trying to play our game and explore where they were a man down,” Andrade said. “It was a good ball, luckily it came to me and I’m just really blessed.”
Head coach Louis Bennett knew that if his team continued to give themselves quality chances, they would eventually come through with the victory.
“They had a guy sent off so if we could create two or three quality chances we had a good opportunity to win the game,” Bennett said. “Zyan created that chance and I’m very proud of my team for hanging in there.”
Marquette’s goalkeeper, redshirt sophomore Chandler Hallwood, did not need to make any saves despite the Billikens getting more shots off. The Billikens goalie, sophomore Patrick Schulte, had five saves on the day.
The fact that no saves were needed, and very few have been needed during the first three games, is part of why Bennett said that his defense has impressed him so far, and that now they need to continue their high level of play on that end so it can transfer over to the offensive side.
“We need to do better with the ball, but if you keep a team away from scoring for that long you’re always going to have a chance to win or tie,” Bennett said. “If we’re as good with the ball as we are defending it, we’re going to have a great season.”
The Golden Eagles now look forward to BIG EAST conference play, as their next matchup is Feb. 20 against Creighton.
“We have a week to work and we know conference play is different,” Andrade said. “We still have a lot to work on but everyone is confident and we are starting to come together and look like a team.”
This story was written by Matt Yeazel. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @MJYeazel.
