It was as record setting day in the season opener for Marquette women’s lacrosse.
Behind senior midfielder Lydia Foust tying the program record with seven goals in a game and career high 12 draw controls from senior defender Ellie Henry, the Golden Eagles (1-0) started the 2023 season with a win over the San Diego State Aztecs, 20-13.
“A win is always good, really happy with the speed of our play today, I’m really happy with seven people scoring today,” head coach Meredith Black said. “Our ride was really effective, caused a lot of turnovers, made it really hard for them to get any groove early on which was key.”
After only five shots in the first five minutes between the two sides, the Golden Eagles had five straight shots, but senior goalie Sam Hoarn stopped all five to keep the game scoreless.
Despite that, it was the Aztecs who would strike first as junior attacker Brook Waddell scored on a free position shot at the 6:50 mark.
Marquette would respond with two goals within in a span of 30 seconds as Foust and senior attacker Mary Schumar found the back of the net to take a 2-1 lead all the way to the end of the quarter.
The second quarter was much more explosive offensively, with Marquette tallying 10 goals in the frame. After outscoring San Diego State 3-2 through five minutes, Marquette would go on a 5-0 run over the next 4:54 to take a 10-3 lead.
Waddell would end a 5-0 Marquette run as she would score on the woman-up opportunity with 2:07 left.
The Golden Eagles would finish out the half strong as Foust scored her fourth goal of the game to send Marquette into the locker room leading 12-4.
Things were much tighter in the third quarter, as the two teams combined for just five goals.
The scoring got under way with first-year Tess Osburn scoring her second of the day to push the Marquette lead to nine, 13-4.
Both sides would endure a scoring drought that lasted 5:46 before junior midfielder Mia Kohn scored for the Aztecs.
Foust responded back 26 seconds later with her fifth goal of the afternoon. Each side would trade goals to end the quarter, but Marquette still led by 11 going into the final quarter.
Henry was assessed a yellow-card at the end of the quarter, which the Aztecs took advantage of 14 seconds into the fourth on the woman-up as senior attacker Deanna Balsama found the back of the net.
The Aztecs tried to mount a comeback scoring four of the next five goals to cut the Golden Eagles’ lead down to just five, 18-13 with 3:22 left to play.
That is as close as the Aztecs would get with the Golden Eagles shutting things down and scoring two more goals, with Foust getting her seventh and senior attacker Shea Garcia getting third.
“Our drives were just working today, I think in the first quarter we weren’t finishing a lot including myself,” Foust said. “I was just taking a lot of shots, giving the goalie saves and all of us were just hitting pipe or something and turning that around we just wanted to find the back of the net more.”
Marquette outshot San Diego State by a wide margin, putting in 36 shots on goal while limiting the Aztecs to just 19 shots on goal.
Behind Henry’s efforts on the draw, Marquette claimed 22 draws to San Diego’s 12.
“When we huddle up before every draw we go, ‘I love you guys, I trust you, let’s go win this’ and we have pride going into the draw,” Henry said. “We know that’s our bread and butter on the team, (but) we don’t do it for each other, we do it for everyone else.”
Junior midfielder Leigh Steiner and senior attacker Hannah Greving scored in their first game back since both suffering knee injures two games into the 2022 season.
Balsama lead the way for the Aztecs by putting up four goals and two assists for six points. Waddell followed behind with four goals of her own and an assist.
Marquette will now start its two-game road trip to Ohio against Youngstown State Friday at 12 p.m. CST.
“We really have to focus on our mentality going into away games, I think we struggled last year on the road” Black said. “It’s a big focus for us just being mentally prepared for everything that comes with a road trip, because a lot of it is unknown, we’ve never played at Youngstown State.”
This article was written by Jackson Gross. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @JacksonGrossMU.
